Rank Group has spent the last few months trying to mitigate an increasingly challenging taxation environment in the UK, leading to venue closures and a slight repositioning of the company’s long-term goals.
CEO Richard Harris took over from John O’Reilly on an interim basis in January, before being appointed permanent CEO in July. Since his appointment at the beginning of the year, eight Mecca Bingo venues have closed.
All of these took place during June, with the previous shuttering of Mecca Bingo Scarborough in November 2025 taking the total for the financial year 2025/26 to nine.
And Rank Group may not be done with its retail consolidation; earlier this week, employees at the Grosvenor Casino in Reading were informed that a consultation is underway on its future.
Harris commented: “These clubs were either loss-making or not commercially viable, so we took the difficult decision to close.”
He also remarked on his gladness at having seen some “positive transfer” of customers from affected premises to other Mecca venues nearby, “where that has been geographically possible”.
Why the closures?
Rank Group remains in pursuit of its £100m operating profit target, and in order to reach it, tough decisions were needed on venues that weren’t contributing profit.
With UK remote gaming duty up to 40% since April 2026, the contribution of retail, which is the largest segment of Rank’s business, becomes even more significant.
In light of this, Harris said of the closed properties: “In those cases, I didn’t see a path […] to positive cash generation over the course of that next five-year time period. In most cases, they had quite significant property liabilities or lease events or something that made it quite difficult to see cash generation being particularly strong in that five-year time period.”
While the future of the Grosvenor in Reading is still in question, for Mecca’s remaining venues, the cull may be coming to an end.
The nine closures leaves 41 Mecca clubs around the country and Harris suggested that in the current tax environment, “around 40 venues is about right.”
Indeed, more money may be around the corner for those that have survived the wave of closures with Harris praising the “higher quality Mecca estate” and suggesting that the group is “happy to invest”.
One warning remained, however. Machine gaming duty is currently set at 20%, but a doubling of that rate has been mooted by the Social Market Foundation.
Harris noted explicitly: “Any increase to the rate will further impact venue viability across both Grosvenor and Mecca and will lead to a reduction in tax receipts within 12 months.”
The financials of closing down
The nine shuttered venues generated £12.6m of revenue during the 2025/26 period before they shut up shop, which would amount to 1.5% of the total net revenue reported by the operator for the year and nearly 9% of the net revenue for the Mecca venues segment.
Mecca revenue was up 4% year-on-year in Q4 FY26, and by the same percentage for the full financial year.
Remarkably, the segment’s underlying operating profit more than doubled from £4.3m in 2024/25 to £8.9m in 2025/26, a 107% rise.
The segment, which is still the third biggest contributor to overall group revenues behind digital and Grosvenor Casinos, will also play a larger part in Rank’s objective of £100m operating profit moving forward, thanks to the abolition of bingo duty.
Both the Mecca clubs and the Enracha brand rely on their flagship bingo products for revenue, but it is worth noting that gaming machines now make up 42% of Mecca’s net revenue, highlighting the relevance of machine gaming duty.
How close is Rank to achieving its £100m operating profit?
Rank’s full-year overall underlying operating profit reached £78.6m, according to the Q4 report.
That marks a rise of 21% year-on-year and brings the company another large step closer to its medium-term goal.
External headwinds have not forced Rank to lower that target, though Harris did explain that the future contribution from the digital segment will be lower, and that the gap needs to be filled elsewhere.
The target has largely survived seemingly because management previously expected profits to greatly exceed the figure.
Grosvenor will become a vital lever, having seen the roll out of 850 new gaming machines in H1 2025/26.
The full positive impact from that change may yet be invisible.
Harris said: “Our experience from adding machines into venues in the past tells us it takes around two to three years to get to maturity.”
And that is yet another reason to believe that the fate of machine gaming duty could have the final say on whether Rank achieves its £100m ambition.
Dingnews.com 14/08/2026