Paddy Power owner Flutter is to make 1,400 redundancies across its workforce in the UK and Ireland

Paddy Power owner Flutter is to make 1,400 redundancies across its workforce in the UK and Ireland, with chief executive Kevin Harrington saying the firm “cannot fully absorb” the increase in betting and gaming duties.

The gambling giant said the proposed job cuts will impact workers in Leeds and Dublin. The restructuring will also impact UK and Ireland staff based at Flutter hubs in Porto, Portugal, and Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

It is understood the move will hit around 15% of workers in the UK and Ireland. Flutter said the overhaul is part of efforts to mitigate costs following a “significant increase” in the UK gaming taxes from last year’s autumn budget.

Kevin Harrington, Flutter UK and Ireland chief executive, said: “The material increase in betting and gaming duties announced in the UK budget last year has fundamentally changed the economic model of the regulated betting and gaming industry in the UK while helping to fuel the unlicensed, unregulated market.

“As we warned a year ago, we cannot fully absorb a rise of this magnitude without reducing our fixed cost base and therefore must restructure our business so that we can best position ourselves for the future.”