Gala Coral has reported losses of £403 million for the year ended September 2008. The figure is almost treble that of the previous financial year. Gala Coral currently operates just under 1600 Coral Betting shops, 162 Bingo Clubs and 29 casinos as well as its online portfolio, employing over 20,000 members of staff.

The company received an cash injection of £124 from its private equity backers Permira, Cinven and Candover, this did little to reduce the pre tax losses of £397m for the year. The breakdown of the losses has been made up of write downs and redundancy costs created when the company closed around 10% of its bingo clubs and casinos earlier in the year.

Galas unexpected difficulties stem from the a long line of tax and regulatory changes that have hit the casino and bingo industries including the recent smoking ban in public places and the amount of £500 jackpot machines permitted in an establishment.

Despite this the new Gala Coral Chief Executive Dominic Harrison reports that trading in the first nine weeks was ahead of the previous year in all divisions despite the current economic situation Coral showed growth of 17%.