Gambling giant plans £14m handout to staff

Flutter Entertainment, the online gambling giant that owns Paddy Power, is to give 14,000 staff a £1,000 bonus for their work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The group’s profits slid by 70 per cent after major sports events were cancelled in the crisis, but CEO Peter Jackson said that “perhaps we are all bookmakers at heart and there is a degree of risk taking.”

At the same time as Flutter was announcing the payment to staff, a ban on gambling advertisements was possibly coming in that would seriously damage the industry. A crackdown on gambling sponsors is being considered by the legislators in the UK, which would seriously hamper the sports betting industry and the sports clubs themselves.

Said Peter Jackson: “If gambling is not allowed to continue its association with sports, because that is what the government decides, then I think that there would need to be a good transition period. I don’t think that the switch would be an easy one because the gambling industry is a source of revenue for the sector.

“Many of these sports are saying: ‘Now’s a really difficult time for us because we have lost all gate receipts – please don’t make life harder for us,’”

Jackson, who was being interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph, went on to say: “But as we have all shown over the past 12 months,  people are very adaptable and sports could get there with enough notice.”