Safe bet: Boss of Paddy Power owner Flutter makes pledge on shops and jobs

The boss of the company behind Paddy Power and Betfair has said he does not plan to close any betting shops or cut staff in the UK as a result of the pandemic. Flutter Entertainment chief executive Peter Jackson said that bookies and their employees are safe, even though profit fell during the first six months of 2020. “We’ve been clear since the start of Covid that we didn’t take money from government support schemes,” he said. “We had already communicated that retail colleagues would be entitled to full pay… we don’t need to see any job losses as a result of Covid.”