Ladbrokes grows in Australia despite possible tax changes

The British company continues to grow in Australia as its stakes and net revenue were up as announced in an earnings call a few weeks ago.

UK.- Ladbrokes Coral, as its oficially known since its merger with Gala Coral, is “knocking it out of the park” in Australia, as company’s CEO Jim Mullen said. Its stakes went up in the country by 68 percent and its net revenue was also higher after a 67 percent increase that was announced in an earnings call a few weeks ago.

Mullen eloquently said: “In Australia, we continue to knock it out of the park,” as he had acclaimed Ladbrokes’ growth in its Australian digital division and in multi-channel sign-up earlier this year. He showed confidence in the market even with the upcoming changes in regulation that could set the point of consumption tax.

Said levy will mean that companies in the online betting industry have to pay a tax on every wager they take from gamblers in a particular state. In case it gets implemented, Mullen says that the company will “deal with it,” as it has in Europe, but advanced that Ladbrokes has “some mitigating plans in place to address that.” Currently, the tax rate is charged from the gross gaming revenue (GGR) and paid to the state where each company operates.

Actually, from July 1, South Australia will introduce a 15 percent tax on all bets place in the state. This means nothing but trouble for the Northern Territories after they’ve established a good base for the industry by having a favorable tax rates offer. Even worse, the federal government is considering the possibility of setting that same tax rate all across the country, something that would definitely wipe out the state as a gambling region.

Ladbrokes CEO said that he still doesn’t see any changes in Australia in the short term: “With regard to the strategy for Australia, I mean, frankly, we’ve been delighted with the growth rates that we have there. We didn’t see as an executive any reason to change that. Now we might get to a point if we are seeing a slowdown in that growth in rates that we may decide to change the approach. But we decided that, that wasn’t the case at the moment.”