Coolbet Job Cuts Put Its B2B Platform Under Scrutiny

Key Points

• Coolbet has taken a hard look at 131 roles at VG Estonia and has pencilled in redundancies. Graham says it’s still not fixed in stone and it’s all still up for discussion through November.
• Insiders say the tech, IT and B2B areas are likely to be hit hardest, but we can’t seem to find any official word linking the job cuts to the V2 migration that’s on the cards.
• Graham is ruling out that the cause is Estonia-specific, and there’s also a review coming up on the gambling tax cuts here.

Coolbet is well known for its betting services, but the redundancies in Tallinn are leading people to wonder if there’s some deeper problem going on in the software side of the business that’s also selling its platform to other operators. Insiders have been saying that most of the 131 jobs at risk are in tech, IT and B2B, which is leaving people wondering why a business that’s apparently doing well with its consumer stuff is facing these cuts.

The Redundancy Talks Are Underway, But Still No Final Answer

There’s a collective redundancy in the offing at VG Estonia OÜ, a company inside the Coolbet group, and it’s paid out to the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund. The next step is a meeting with staff, which took place on 26 October.

Tomas Graham, the chief operating officer told us that 131 positions had been pinpointed as being at risk. Estonian business newspaper Äripäev reported that it could be as many as 134 people. Graham stressed that nothing has been set in stone yet, and said “nothing has been decided today”, the talks are expected to rattle on through November, though there is no end date planned.

It’s also worth noting that the number of staff who are actually going to be affected will depend on what number you go with. ERR reported that VG Estonia had around 300 staff at the end of September, but NEXT.io has it at more than 360, these numbers are all over the place, making it really hard to work out the proposed cuts as a percentage of the total staff count.

Coolbet’s website claims to have a team of over 1,100 people, with around 300 of those in Tallinn. And another Estonian company, Staycool OÜ, provides the online betting services for Coolbet inside Estonia.

The Insiders Say It’s Development, IT and B2B That Are At Risk

Insiders have been telling us that it’s mainly the development, IT and B2B teams that are facing the chop, some of the service teams, including the customer support crew, are also in the firing line.

They said that its B2B business has been doing pretty badly for the past 12 to 18 months, mainly in the US market. However the consumer side of things has been holding up pretty well after a strong World Cup year. Coolbet hasn’t confirmed any of this in their public statement, nor have they given us any details about the US market.

ERR asked if the redundancies could leave Estonia with too many IT specialists.

Sega Sammy Platform Plans Raise Further Questions

In May 2025, Sega Sammy acquired GAN for $96.0m. As a result, Coolbet became part of Sega Sammy’s holdings. The price paid per share is $1.97, which is a 121% premium over GAN’s last closing price prior to the acquisition announcement back in November 2023.

The Group’s CFO Koichi Fukazawa highlighted “significant technical and development resources” in GAN. Fukazawa also noted “significant experience of the team in the US market.” That is the market where B2B performance reportedly has been poor in the last 18 months.

The fact that the Tallinn reductions are focused on development and IT positions raises an additional consideration. At the same time, in his comments about GAN’s technical and development capabilities, Fukazawa does not mention Tallinn.

GAN’s May 2026 results presentation notes that “B2B is currently undergoing a transitional phase in connection with the replacement of its core platform.” The same presentation reports “Continued strong performance in Northern Europe and South America” for B2C operations. In June, the management highlighted the V2 migration as the number one priority in the company’s question-and-answer session.

Regarding the ownership change, Graham said that Coolbet’s strategy was “aligned with the broader group’s long-term priorities.”

Estonian Tax Cuts Are Context, Not Cause for Lay-offs

Graham has dismissed the idea that conditions in Estonia had anything to do with the redundancies. According to him, the layoffs are “not related to anything specific regarding Estonia as a gambling market.” The teams affected, Graham said, “happen to be based in Estonia.”

In addition, Graham called Estonia “a key market for us both as a company and as a B2C gaming market.”

Still, Estonia’s gambling tax cuts remain in the focus of attention in the country’s gambling sector. On 3 December 2025, Estonia’s parliament passed a resolution to reduce remote gambling tax gradually starting from 51 to 31 votes. The tax will decrease at a pace of half a percentage point annually from 6% to 4% by 2029.

The Finance Ministry warned that the tax cut would affect tax revenues. The Ministry estimates that the revenue gap will increase from €6m in 2026 to €13m in 2029.

At the same time, a drafting mistake made remote gambling tax non-applicable to online casinos in January and February 2026.

Flutter’s Warning of 1400 Jobs Lost Shows The Wider Cost Crunch That’s Starting to Bite

On 20 October, Flutter announced that up to 1400 positions could be on the block, that’s a pretty sizable 16% of its UK and Ireland division.

The Remote Gaming Duty is about to jump from 21% to 40% in April 2026, and the General Betting Duty is set to rise from 15% to 25% in April 2027. Flutter is going to have to take a restructuring hit of $80m to $90m in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Kevin Harrington, who’s at the helm of Flutter’s UK and Ireland business, said that the company won’t be able to absorb the impact of this big tax hike without making some pretty tough cuts to its fixed costs.

Flutter has pinpointed the duties behind its restructuring plans, along with an estimate of how much they’re going to cost. Over in Estonia, Coolbet has mentioned a tax-related problem but hasn’t actually named the specific taxes or markets that are behind the pressure it’s feeling.

Expert Analysis: Is A Healthy Consumer Brand Being Made To Take the Hit For A Supplier Who’s Still Struggling To Get Back On Track?

ERR reported that VG Estonia had managed to turn over €23m last year and scraped a net profit of €311,000 despite a pretty thin profit margin of about 1.4%. This suggests that the company was doing it pretty tough and had limited room to play with.

Quarterly tax filings show that they ended up with a turnover of almost €60m this year, but these figures aren’t the result of a proper audit. ERR also reported that the company hadn’t even filed its 2025 annual report at the time the news broke.

It’s reported that the average monthly wage for employees is €4,100. So, if we assume that the 131 positions to be axed will take a big chunk of that, we’re looking at annual savings of around €6.4m, although this is just a rough estimate and doesn’t take into account severance payments or any difference in individual salaries.

Coolbet says it’s all about “long-term sustainability and competitiveness” but the big question is which part of the business is going to end up footing the bill for this restructuring.

Our take goes a bit beyond what Coolbet has actually said. It looks like the consumer business is pretty much carrying the can on this one, helping to bail out the supplier business which is still having to get back on its feet. Reports say the consumer side is doing fine, while Sega Sammy says the B2B platform is in the process of getting an upgrade. The fact that many of the job cuts are in development, IT and B2B areas adds weight to this interpretation.

With many of the development staff set to be cut, it could also cause some logistical problems for B2B clients, fewer development staff may affect the delivery of software and other services to the operators who are already using GAN’s products.

Of course Coolbet could argue that cutting staff in weaker areas of the business makes sense when things aren’t going so well. That’s a fair point. But no one’s even made the connection between the 131 positions at risk and the V2 migration yet, and Coolbet hasn’t actually named the markets that are behind the tax and regulatory pressures either.