UK Casinos Are Cutting Pragmatic Play RTPs After the 40% Tax — Here's What We Know

The Remote Gaming Duty increased from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026. The government's own impact assessment predicted operators would pass through up to 90% of the cost to consumers through reduced payouts and less favourable terms. Three weeks later, the evidence confirms this is happening.

IBTimes UK published the first comparative analysis on 23 April 2026 reviewing 20 popular slots across UK operators. The finding: several operators have reduced RTP settings, effectively increasing their margin. Named Pragmatic Play titles in the analysis include Big Bass Splash and Gates of Olympus — two of the UK's most popular slots.

Hollywoodbets stands alone

Don Barker, Head of Operations at Hollywoodbets UK, stated directly: in light of the recent duty changes, there has been a clear shift across the market in how operators are approaching RTP configurations. Hollywoodbets UK was singled out as consistently selecting the highest available RTP versions — the only operator to earn that distinction in the comparative analysis.

The financial pressure is significant

The scale of the duty change is severe. Rank Group described the impact as £46 million gross — enough to wipe out the profitability of its UK digital business. Flutter guided $320 million for FY26 rising to $540 million by FY27. Entain estimated approximately £100 million in FY26 EBITDA impact. Evoke closed 200 William Hill betting shops in March 2026. Playtech guided high-teens millions of euros EBITDA impact.

The silent lever

No UK-listed operator has publicly announced RTP cuts. Every mitigation framework focuses on cost-base reductions and promotional spend — never on payout percentages. Rank explicitly protected customer incentives and performance marketing. Flutter restructured Paddy Power marketing. All are silent on RTP. This is not coincidental. RTP is the one lever operators can pull silently because the UKGC does not require notification of configuration changes.

Pragmatic Play's three-tier system (typically 96.50% / 95.50% / 94.50%) means operators can downshift with a configuration change. Moving from 96.50% to 94.50% on Gates of Olympus increases operator margin by 2 percentage points on every spin — a significant revenue recovery from the duty increase.

RTPTrack will monitor and publish any verified deployment changes as they occur. The post-RGD period between April and September 2026 is the most important surveillance window for UK slot RTP integrity.