Bombs Away

How to play Bombs Away

Last month, meanwhile, Betfred announced plans to shutter 132 of its UK betting shops, reducing its workforce by over 600 employees.

Betfred CEO Jo Whittaker said: “We have tried hard to protect all our sites and the colleagues who work in them, but the combined impact of higher employer National Insurance contributions, wage inflation, increases in gambling taxes and wider economic uncertainty has left us with no choice.”

Kyle has been with Clarion since December 2023, joining from the world of sports journalism, subsequently becoming a LatAm-facing senior reporter with iGB.

How to play Bombs Away

“The bottleneck becomes the person reviewing everything. That does not mean we never review the code itself. For sensitive or critical parts of the system, we still look more closely at the implementation, particularly from an architecture, performance, security and reliability perspective. But we no longer apply that level of manual code review to everything.” Grenstad says.

The shift to AI is also changing how Grenstad thinks about recruitment. A team working on the player journey, for example, needs people who understand casinos, iGaming and what a strong player experience should look like.

“I would not necessarily prioritise senior Java or front-end specialists in the same way as before,” Grenstad explains. “Technical skills remain important, particularly for people who can assess architecture and ensure systems remain reliable, but domain knowledge is becoming increasingly valuable. I’d rather take someone who’s good in the domain but doesn’t know any Java.”

About Bombs Away

A potential MGD rise was first reported in the The Financial Times, as Chancellor John Healey is allegedly looking to raise the tax, on the recommendation of the Social Market Foundation, which proposed the increase in a recent report.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham had already announced the government’s intention to scrap “aim to permit” for betting shops as well as insisting that AGCs will now need planning permission to function.

In her letter David warned another tax increase, on top of April’s RGD increase to 40% of GGR, could increase its operational expenses for retail by £100 million annually.