Is Andy Burnham's Betting Shop Crackdown Based on a False Narrative? What the Closure Numbers Actually Show

Prime Minister Andy Burnham this week branded betting shops "dodgy businesses" as the government confirmed plans to scrap the 'aim to permit' rule that has protected them from planning refusal. 

Councils will get new powers to block betting shops, 24-hour adult gaming centres and vape retailers from opening on the high street.

The problem for that framing: betting shops aren't opening. They're closing, and fast.

New figures released by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) show more than 540 high-street betting shops have shut since last year's Budget alone, with around 4,500 jobs lost in that period.^[1] 

Zoom out further, and the picture is starker still. Since 2019, roughly 3,000 shops have closed, and more than 15,000 jobs have gone, with shop numbers down by over a third.

So, is the government tightening the net on a sector that's expanding unchecked, as Burnham's language implies? Or is it piling planning restrictions onto an industry that's already shrinking under the weight of its own tax bill?

The Local Government Association backed the move as a "positive step" for councils looking to shape their high streets. The BGC's response was more pointed.

“We support tough action against criminal operators and agree local people should have a proper say over their high streets," a BGC spokesperson said. 

"But the suggestion that betting shops are spreading unchecked is simply wrong.” 

The Numbers Burnham's Rhetoric Doesn't Mention

That's where the newly released BGC data lands hardest. Betting shops that remain still support around 37,500 jobs across Britain and generate meaningful footfall for neighbouring high-street businesses. The wider regulated betting and gaming sector supports 109,000 jobs, contributes £6.8bn in gross value added, and generates more than £4bn a year in tax revenue.

BGC chief executive Grainne Hurst was blunt about where she thinks the blame sits.

“The numbers speak for themselves. The BGC repeatedly warned the previous Chancellor that further tax increases would cost jobs, close businesses and damage growth," she said. "Betfred's decision to close 132 shops, putting more than 600 jobs at risk, is the latest evidence of the pressure now facing the sector.” 

Hurst pushed back directly on the Treasury's position that gambling duty rates for high-street shops haven't changed, and that closures therefore aren't the government's doing. Her argument is that operators don't run shops and online betting as separate businesses, they run them as one.

“The Treasury may pretend these tax rises only hit online gambling, but that is simply not how the industry works,” she added. 

“Betting companies run their shops and online businesses together, so when costs are driven up in one part of the business, jobs, investment and high-street shops suffer across the rest.” 

That's borne out by what's actually happened on the ground this year. Betfred cited the Remote Gambling Duty rise directly when it announced 132 shop closures and over 600 job cuts in August. 

Evoke closed 200 William Hill stores in April for the same reason. 

Entain reduced its Ladbrokes estate in Ireland after sale talks collapsed.

Is Worse Still to Come?

Hurst's warning suggests yes. She flagged the forthcoming increase in online sports betting duty as the next pressure point, one she says will “pile even more pressure on operators, threatening jobs and investment while taking vital funding and sponsorship away from British sport.”

Layer planning restrictions on top of that tax pressure, and the sector's argument is straightforward: shops that survive the tax rises now face a tougher path to opening new sites or relocating, at precisely the moment they can least afford it.

Compliance consultant Kirsty Caldwell, of Betsmart, made a similar point when the planning changes were first announced, arguing licensed betting shops have been “a fixture of the UK high street since the 1960s” and questioning how a sector generating roughly £4bn in tax revenue and over 100,000 jobs can be bracketed with vape retailers that carry no equivalent regulatory oversight.

The Framing Problem

Whether or not you buy the BGC's economic argument, the “dodgy businesses” tag sits awkwardly next to a sector that's contracting by the month. 

Unchecked expansion is a genuine planning concern in some high streets, particularly around late-night AGCs. But the data the BGC has released this week doesn't describe an industry expanding into communities uninvited, it describes one retreating from them, largely for tax reasons the government insists aren't behind it.

The real test now is whether the planning changes and the tax pressure combine to accelerate closures the BGC has already been warning about for over a year, or whether tighter local control genuinely targets the “rogue or criminal” operators Burnham says he's after, while leaving the regulated majority alone.