Tote to Close Its Online Casino on 9 December 2026

The Tote is shutting down its online casino. Tote Games and Tote Live Casino will be withdrawn at 00:01 on Wednesday 9 December 2026, leaving the brand focused on what it was built for: racing pools, alongside a fixed odds sportsbook.

The Tote describes the move as a strategic reorientation that narrows its consumer facing business to those two products. Racing and sports customers are not affected, but anyone who uses the Tote for slots, table games or live dealer games has just under six weeks left.

Key dates for Tote customers

If you play casino games at the Tote, use up any casino bonus funds before the closure and withdraw any balance you don't plan to use on racing or sport. Your account itself stays open, and nothing changes for pool betting on the Placepot, Jackpot, Quadpot or win and place pools, or for fixed odds sports bets.

The official reason, and the tax bill nobody mentions

The Tote has not linked the closure to tax, and it may well be a straightforward business decision about where a pool betting brand should put its money. But it is hard to read the news without thinking about the bill online casinos now face.

In her November 2025 Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves raised Remote Gaming Duty, the tax on online casino and slots profits, from 21% to 40% from 1 April 2026. The rate had been 21% since 2014. Remote sports betting duty also rises from 15% to 25% in April 2027.

The products spared are telling. Remote betting on horse racing stays at 15%, and pool betting is excluded from the new 25% remote betting rate. Those are exactly the products the Tote is now doubling down on. Whatever the boardroom reasoning, a business that steps back from the most heavily taxed product and keeps the lightly taxed ones is responding to the incentives the government created.

Our view: Labour's casino tax is doing real damage

At betting.bet we think the Labour government got this badly wrong. Nearly doubling a tax overnight is not reform; it is a cash grab aimed at an industry ministers clearly see as an easy political target.

The consequences are already showing. Rank Group, owner of Grosvenor and Mecca, said the rise would add around £46m to its costs, and has since cut staff to absorb the hit. Evoke, owner of William Hill, flagged roughly £135m in extra duty. Those costs land on jobs, on the bonuses and odds players get, and on the smaller operators least able to absorb them.

The bigger worry is where players go next. H2 Gambling Capital expects the UK's offshore market to grow as a result of the duty rise. Unlicensed sites pay no UK tax, offer no UK Gambling Commission protections and have no duty of care to British customers. A policy sold as protecting vulnerable players risks pushing some of them somewhere far less safe.

When a long established, government founded brand like the Tote walks away from casino entirely, Labour should treat it as a warning sign, not a success story.

What it means for punters

For racing fans, the Tote is arguably stronger for this: a sharper focus on pools and racing should mean the product it does best gets more attention. For casino players, the message is simple. Finish up and withdraw before 9 December, and if you want to keep playing, stick to UK licensed sites only.

We'll update our Tote review once the casino closes. In the meantime, see our best betting sites page for UK licensed bookmakers that still offer racing, sport and casino under one account.