Ladbrokes to voluntarily pay a levy

Gambling operator Ladbrokes Coral will voluntarily pay a levy on its international turnover from online betting at UK greyhound racing.

UK.- Ladbrokes Coral, the UK based gambling operator, has announced that it will voluntarily pay a levy on its international online betting turnover from UK greyound racing, CalvinAyre reported. As operators already return a 0.6 percent turnover from the segment to the British Greyhound Racing Fund, the company revealed its intentions to start paying a levy on its “off shore greyhound turnover” starting next year.

Even as a Ladbrokes Coral spokesperson commented that horseracing was “in danger of pricing itself out of friends” after it became known that operators will be required to pay a uniform 10 percent levy on all revenue from the UK horseracing industry, the betting operator, which owns four greyhound tracks, decided to start paying fees in order to “subsidise its own operations” and probably making the government to require rivals to do the same.

Just 3 percent of UK adults placed a retail wager on greyhound racing, against 11 percent for horses, according to a UKGC survey of gambling participacion that proved the downfall of the activity. Furthermore, the return to dog racing by bookmakers has dropped to nearly half of what it used to be 10 years ago.

Jim Mullen, Ladbrokes Coral CEO, explained the company is still “passionate supporters of greyhound racing” and even as they “haven’t always agreed that the sport is under-funded, we do recognise that it is time for the industry to move on and start to rebuild the sport,” which is why he hopes the extra levy can help build “a better sport and spectacle for the modern day customer.”