A new report by Gambling Industry Jobs, drawing on the UK Government’s official Gender Pay Gap Service data, provides a detailed look into how the UK gambling industry is progressing—or falling behind—when it comes to gender pay equity. The report compares historical data from 2017/18 to 2024/25, alongside a year-on-year analysis from 2023/24 to 2024/25 across 25 gambling companies.
The national gender pay gap in the UK stood at 7.0% in April 2024, down modestly from 7.5% the previous year. While this statistic does not explicitly mean that women are paid less than men for doing the same job, it does reflect entrenched structural inequalities—such as the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles, gendered job segmentation, and disparities in working patterns like part-time employment, which tend to disproportionately affect women.
Standouts and setbacks
Within the gambling industry, this picture is uneven. Encouragingly, companies like PokerStars, SIS.TV, Betway, and William Hill significantly reduced the gap in hourly pay over the past year. At Livescore Group, the pay gap even reversed, with women now earning more than men on average.
However, not all companies moved in the right direction. Entain Marketing, Fanduel, and Genius Sports reported widening pay gaps.
Overall, of the 25 companies analysed, 11 made progress, six showed no significant change, and eight saw their gaps increase.
Bonus pay gaps remain stark
The report also examines the bonus pay gap—an area where disparities tend to be even more pronounced due to high-value bonuses typically being awarded in senior roles, which remain male-dominated.
The 2024/25 data shows that most companies continue to award substantially higher bonuses to men. In fact, 15 of the 25 companies saw their median bonus gaps grow over the past year. Only seven managed to reduce this gap.
Nevertheless, there are positive examples: Hippodrome Casino reported a 0.0% bonus gap for the second year running, and Livescore Group continued its rare trend of awarding higher bonuses to women than to men.
Fewer employees receiving bonuses
Yet, the availability of bonuses paints another sobering picture. From 2023/24 to 2024/25, access to bonus schemes slightly declined across the board. More companies reported fewer than half of their male and female employees receiving any bonuses, while fewer companies remained in the mid-range (with 50% to 80% of employees receiving bonuses). A decline that may suggest cost-cutting or changes in incentive strategies.
Underrepresentation at the top
Finally, the analysis of pay quartiles—a breakdown of employee earnings into four equal parts—reveals an entrenched pattern: women are still overrepresented in the lowest-paying roles and underrepresented in the highest.
In the lowest quartile, women are often well represented, with many companies showing over 40% female participation. But in the top quartile, this figure drops sharply.
Twelve out of the 25 companies had fewer than 25% women in their highest-paid roles. This imbalance in representation at senior levels remains one of the primary drivers of the gender pay gap and suggests that, while headline figures may improve, deeper structural barriers remain.
Read the full report by Kristal Ó Gribín on Gambling Industry Jobs .
