2020 Gender Pay Gap Overall Increase at Flutter UK Businesses

Global gambling group Flutter Entertainment released its 2020 gender pay gap report to comply with its obligation as a large employer in the UK.

Examined Entities

The report outlined the difference between the average earnings of men and women across all jobs at all levels within 4 Flutter-owned brands operating in the UK which had more than 250 employees on the snapshot date, retail bookmaker Paddy Power and online gaming brands Betfair, Sky Betting & Gaming and PokerStars UK.

The gender gap report combined data from the 3 online operating entities to present an overall picture of the online business compared to the retail one. It used mean and median hourly bonus pay and divided statistical populations into 4 subcategories (quartiles) according to the level of pay: lower, lower-middle, upper-middle, and upper. Flutter did not post aggregate numbers for the online business.

Online vs Retail

Flutter online entities showed a mean hourly pay gap of 13.7% compared to 9.3% for the retail business, while the median was 15.6% for the online and 3.8% for the retail. 2020 mean bonus pay was tilted 42.4% in favor of men in the online entities and 30.3% in retail, while the median bonus pay gap was 22.8% for the online and 32.2% for the retail businesses.

The data by quartiles revealed a pattern applicable to both online and retail divisions where, as the pay level goes up, so does the gender pay gap. Starting from 70.7% for the lower and climbing up to 84.4% for the upper quartiles online, while retail showed 49.5% for the lower quartile and 63.5% for the upper.

Brand by Brand

At Paddy Power 1719 employees of which 55% men, revealed a mean hourly pay gap of 9.3%, an increase of 2% compared to the previous reporting period. The median hourly pay gap also increased compared to 2019, by 1.4% to 3.8%.

With regards to pay quartiles, only the lower middle experienced an increase in the gap by 5% compared to 2019, while the other 3 revealed a decrease of 1.5%, 0.4%, and 4.9%.

With regards to bonus payments, 89.8% and 87% of men and women received bonuses, delivering a mean bonus pay gap decrease by 8.2% compared to 2019 and a median bonus pay gap increase by 9.6%.

At Betfair, with 75% of the 500 headcount on the snapshot date men, data showed 1.1% and 13.9% mean and median pay gap, respectively – a decrease of 10.3% in the mean and an increase of 0.3% in the median readings.

Pay quartiles delivered 75.5%, 67.7%, 75.7%, and 82.2% male dominance across lower, lower-middle, upper-middle, and upper quartiles, with a gap increase of 3.1% compared to 2019 only in the lower, while the rest declined by 1.3%, 4.5%, and 1.1%.

With 91.2% of men and 88% of women receiving bonuses, the bonus gender pay gap was 40.8% for the mean and 32.3% for the median, an increase of 34.2% and 4.1%, respectively.

Sky Betting & Gaming, which had 1537 employees on the snapshot date of which 77% male, revealed a gender pay gap of 15.8% and 18.7% for the mean and median readings, both marginally up.

Pay quartiles gaps were 68.9%, 74.3%, 79.4%, and 86.7% for the 4 subcategories, with only the upper increasing by 2%, while the other 3 decreased between 1.1% and 1.8%.

Mean and median bonus pay gaps were 34.5%, an increase of 8.5% from 2019, and 22.5%, a decrease of 1.9% compared to the previous year as 90.2% of men and 89.7% of women received bonus payments.

At Halfords Media UK, the company running the PokerStars business in the UK, 392 employees were 74% male-dominated. The pay gap came out at 26.5 % and 22.4% for the mean and median readings, increases of 2.1% and 10% from 2019.

Pay quartile gaps were 60%, 72.6%, 78.9%, and 85.3%, with all bar the lower quartile which decreased by 5.1% posting an increase from 2019.

Bonus pay gaps also increased compared to the year prior, by 19.3% to 60% for the mean, and 0.7% to 15.9% for the median readings, as 80.3% of male and 67% of female employees received bonuses.

Flutter outlined the lower female representation as the main driver for the gender pay gap across its online businesses, while unequal quartile distribution of men and women was the main reason for the gap in retail.