Flutter-owned Tombola, Europe’s biggest online bingo website, is to shed up to 250 staff, more than a third of its workforce, according to reliable sources.
Tombola’s 700 UK staff were warned in an email last week by company management at the Sunderland HQ in the North East of England that there was “the very real possibility of job cuts” affecting around 250 workers.
Irish-origin Flutter, owners of Paddy Power, Sky Bet and the leading FanDuel sports book in the United States, is considered the world’s biggest betting company.
It bought Tombola, which was founded in 2006, for £402 million (US$489.17mn) at the end of 2021.
The biggest staff retrenchment was directed at Tombola’s 250-strong Customer Experience team, which is set to be slashed to 100 workers. Customer Support and Safeplay Advisers are also to be culled.
All three teams are now expected to be segued more efficiently with their counterparts across the holding company’s iGaming empire.
Tombola is part of Flutter’s UK and Ireland division, which generated £396 million (US$481.85mn) in Adjusted EBITDA in its HI, ending June 30, this year — up £27 million (US$32.85mn) on the same period in 2022.
Last year, Tombola generated sales of £117 million (US$142.36mn) and posted a pre-tax profit of £25 million (US$30.41mn).
Flutter was aiming to be “more efficient” and “remove duplication”, a highly-placed source familiar with the process told iGamingFuture.
“[We have] communicated a number of proposed changes to our customer service teams following an extensive operational review,” confirmed Tombola in a media statement.
“As a result, a number of colleagues will now take part in a formal consultation process that will include significant opportunities for redeployment within the business, but will also unfortunately lead to a number of redundancies.”
Meantime, Flutter’s Q3 results–scheduled for release early next month, November–are keenly awaited.
