British gambling sector blasts proposal for “short-sighted” tax hike on ”nation’s hobby”
The Betting and Gaming Council has urged chancellor Rachel Reeves to ignore pressure from over 100 MPs calling for a gambling tax hike.
UK.- The British gambling sector has responded after over 100 Labour MPs wrote to chancellor Rachel Reeves to increase pressure for a gambling tax hike in the autumn budget. Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown had already put his weight behind calls for a rise in online gambling tax from 21 to 50 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats are also backing a tax rise.
However, the industry lobby group Betting and Gaming Council, has described the proposal as “short-sighted”, arguing that it would harm jobs, investment and sports funding, while failing to deliver more revenue for the state.
BGC CEO Grainne Hurst said: ”If the Chancellor didn’t have enough on her plate trying to fix the creaking economy she inherited, in recent weeks she has also had to contend with anti-gambling prohibitionists who have whipped up calls for punitive tax hikes on punters.
“They have sold this policy as a quick fix, an easy solution, but the truth couldn’t be further from the truth. Each month 22.5m people enjoy a bet, in bookmakers on hard-pressed high streets, in casinos, which are a pillar of our leisure and tourism sector, plus in bingo halls and online.
”It’s these millions of people who will feel the hit if this government caves to the demands from those who look down their noses at people who enjoy a bet, and who have gleefully heaped more pressure on the Chancellor. Their number includes former colleagues and local Labour politicians who ignore the investment we make in their constituencies, and should know better.”
Hurst described betting as ”the nation’s hobby“ and said it had created ”one of this country’s few, genuine global business success stories”.
”Betting is part of British cultural life,” she said. “It’ going to the races, backing your favourite football team, meeting your mates in the bookies or enjoying a night at the bingo. It’s part of the tradition and heritage of this country. And punters will not take kindly to the suggestion they and their hobby are there to be hit with another tax hike. Especially after enduring so much change as a result of the White Paper, which transformed regulations for betting and gaming in the UK, and which is still being implemented.”
Parallel with The Netherlands
She also highlighted the results of this year’s gambling tax hike in the Netherlands, where the national regulator, the KSA, has said that the increased rate was counterproductive, leading to a drop in tax revenue.
”We only need to look to the Netherlands to see this playing out right now. They lumped up tax on online gaming to 34.2 per cent in January; it directly led to a 25 per cent decrease in gross gambling revenue, and a tax shortfall of €200m.
”Increased taxes did not mean increased tax take – it meant less. Because we know what the think tank academics don’t: punters will change their behaviour in response to tax hikes. They will bet in the illegal market who pay no tax.”
The BGC is also campaigning against existing plans to merge Britain’s current three separate categories of online gambling tax into a new Remote Betting and Gaming Duty.
