Bookmakers William Hill is consulting on the closure of 700 branches across the UK, putting around 4,500 jobs at risk.
It comes after the government’s decision to reduce the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals from £100 to £2 on April 1, 2019. Since then, the company has seen a “significant” fall in gaming machine revenues, in line with the guidance given when the government’s decision was announced in May 2018.
The company said a “large number of redundancies is anticipated”, with 4,500 colleagues at risk. The group said it would look to apply voluntary redundancy and “redeployment measures” extensively.