The UK’s biggest betting names have once again featured prominently in the Sunday Times Tax List — but the industry faces a turbulent year ahead as sweeping tax hikes bite into profits.
Betfred Brothers Claim the Top Spot
The 2026 Sunday Times Tax List makes for remarkable reading for anyone with an interest in betting and gambling. For the first time, Fred and Peter Done — the brothers behind Betfred — have claimed the number one position, with an estimated tax contribution of £400.1 million. That’s a significant jump from £273.4 million the previous year, and roughly half of that figure is directly linked to gambling duties generated by Betfred’s nationwide chain of around 1,350 betting shops.
Peter Done, aged 78, made clear he has no intention of joining the growing exodus of wealthy individuals leaving Britain for lower-tax jurisdictions. “We owe this country,” he told the Sunday Times — a refreshingly candid stance in a year when 14 of the list’s top 100 taxpayers are now resident overseas.
The Coates Family at Number Five
Denise, John and Peter Coates — the family behind online giant bet365 — come in at fifth place with a tax bill of £227.1 million. Denise Coates has historically topped this list in previous years, her personal tax contributions a direct reflection of bet365’s extraordinary profitability. The family’s combined net worth sits at around £7.46 billion, and Stoke-on-Trent remains home to one of the UK’s most quietly powerful betting empires.
The Wider Industry Picture
Beyond the headline names, the UK gambling industry as a whole remains a colossal contributor to the public finances. The top 100 taxpayers on the 2026 list collectively contributed a record £5.758 billion — with betting clearly punching well above its weight relative to its size as a sector.
The major listed operators also carry significant tax footprints, even if their owners don’t appear on the personal tax list in the same way:
- Flutter Entertainment (Paddy Power, Betfair, Sky Bet, FanDuel) — paid over £700 million in taxes to HMRC in their most recent year, employing more than 5,000 people in the UK.
- Entain (Ladbrokes, Coral, Sportingbet) — one of the UK’s largest bookmaking groups with over 2,300 retail outlets.
- Evoke (William Hill) — operating approximately 1,300 high street shops across Great Britain.
The Tax Storm on the Horizon
Despite these eye-watering contributions to the Treasury, the industry is bracing for a painful 2026 and beyond. The 2025 Autumn Budget delivered what many operators called a “devastating hammer blow”: online gaming duty is set to rise to 40% from April 2026, with a new 25% remote betting duty on online sports betting (excluding horse racing) following in April 2027.
The reactions from major operators were stark:
- Flutter warned of an adjusted earnings impact of approximately $320 million in 2026, rising to $540 million in 2027 before any mitigating action.
- Entain estimated an annualised hit of around £200 million.
- Evoke (William Hill) projected an annualised duty increase of £125–135 million.
- Betfred’s Fred Done warned that a tax rate approaching 40% would leave “no profit in the business” and threatened all 1,287 of its UK shops if the hikes had been more aggressive.
On the high street, the picture is already shifting. Flutter permanently closed 57 Paddy Power shops in late 2025, while William Hill threatened up to 200 further closures. Entain has acknowledged that some of its Ladbrokes and Coral branches are “barely viable” in the current environment.
What This Means for Punters
For those of us who follow the markets closely — and who understand that bookmaker behaviour is one of the most telling signals in the game — these are not trivial developments. When bookmakers face squeezed margins, the consequences flow downstream:
- Reduced promotional offers and enhanced odds campaigns
- Tighter margins on competitive markets
- Fewer shops on the high street, particularly in smaller towns
- Potential consolidation, with smaller operators most at risk
There’s also the broader market integrity question. Several operators have argued — with some justification — that pushing up regulated duty rates drives activity toward unregulated offshore platforms, which pay nothing to the UK Exchequer and offer none of the consumer protections that licensed bookmakers are required to provide.
The Bigger Picture
The Sunday Times Tax List is a useful reminder that whatever one thinks of the gambling industry, its contribution to public finances is substantial and tangible. The Done brothers alone contributed more to the Treasury last year than many entire sectors. The Coates family’s bet365 continues to generate revenues that dwarf most UK businesses.
At Stable Whispers, we watch all of this closely — because how bookmakers respond to external pressure is every bit as revealing as how they respond to market pressure. A bookmaker tightening its margins, reducing its offers, or restructuring its operations is sending signals. Those signals matter.
As always, the smart money watches what bookmakers do, not just what they say.
Want to understand how bookmaker behaviour reveals market intelligence before the off? Explore a Stable Whispers membership — our proprietary ratings cut through the noise to show you where the real money is moving.
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