UK Autumn Budget confirms steep gambling tax increases

Online casino gambling will face the bring of the rise in British gambling taxes announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves.

UK.- Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget has confirmed that online gambling operators – and online casino operators in particular – will face a steep gambling tax increase in the UK.

Online casino operators will face the heaviest impact, with remote gaming duty for the vertical to almost double, rising from 21 to 40 per cent from April 2026. The new online casino tax rate is not as high as the 50 per cent proposed by the think tank the IPPR and supported by figures such as former prime minister Gordon Brown, but it’s still higher than what many observers had expected.

Meanwhile, general betting duty on online sports wagers will rise from 15 to 25 per cent starting a year later in April 2027.

In a move intended to avoid harming the land-based sector, the tax rate on bets placed at high street betting shops will not change. That also goes for gaming machines in betting shops. Horse racing bets will be entirely exempt from the increase, and the 10 per cent tax on bingo will be scrapped entirely.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which evaluates fiscal impacts, has calculated that the new gambling tax framework will bring in an additional £1.1bn a year in government revenue by 2029–30. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that the revenue will fund the removal of the two-child cap on child benefit.

The government has recognised that the move may reduce betting activity and push some customers to the black market if higher duties translate into less favourable odds and bonuses. However, Reeves said that online gambling had been singled out because it is “associated with the highest levels of harm.”

Response to the UK gambling tax hike

Despite a tax hike of some extent having been widely expected, shares in major operators initially dropped following the budget announcement.

The more diversified operators, such as Flutter (owner of Paddy Power), Entain (Ladbrokes and Coral), and Rank (Grosvenor Casino and Mecca bingo) soon recovered as it became clear the online casino gambling would be most affected. However, Evoke, which owns 888 and William Hill, was heavily impacted, with its shares trading down by over 18 per cent by market close.

Rank Group has said that it expect the tax rise to hit its operating profit to the tune of £40m.

Various politicians welcomed the move, including Meg Hillier, chair of the Treasury select committee, welcomed the move. She said Reeves had resisted industry “scaremongering.” Her committee had recently criticised gambling lobbyists, which added to the expectation that a gambling tax rise would be announced today.

Hillier said: “Some parts of the gambling industry, such as racecourses and bingo halls, make a cultural contribution to our country. This is not the case, though, for online slots and other remote gaming, which can quickly drain the bank balances of vulnerable people after just a few clicks of a button on a phone. It’s reassuring to see that the chancellor agrees with us on this and I look forward to discussing it further with her when she appears in front of us in December.”

However, industry groups blasted rise in gambling tax. Betting and Gaming Council CEO Grainne Hurst said: “[The] massive tax increases for online betting and gaming announced in the Budget make them among the highest in the world, and are a devastating hammer blow to tens of thousands of people working in the industry across the UK, and millions of customers who enjoy a bet.

“Regulated betting and gaming is one of the UK’s few globally successful sectors, generating £6.8bn for the economy, contributing over £4bn in tax and supporting 109,000 jobs, while delivering vital funding for British sport.

“While we welcome the decision not to raise land-based duties and to scrap bingo duty, these excessive online tax increases will undermine jobs, investment and growth across the UK. The Government’s Budget is a massive win for the incredibly harmful, unsafe, unregulated gambling black market, which pays no tax and offers none of the protections that exist in the regulated sector. These decisions are bad for jobs, bad for customers, bad for sports – and bad for safer gambling”

Horseracing betting emerges unscathed

The horseracing sector is widely considered to be a winner in today’s budget announcement since horseracing betting has been exempted from the rise in gambling tax.

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) credits its Axe the Racing Tax campaign with having played a role in convincing the government to drop a previous proposal to unify the various online gambling taxes under a single Remote Betting and Gaming Duty for all verticals. The tax on horse racing betting will remain at 15 per cent.

BHA chairman Lord Charles Allen said: “The Government has rightly recognised that we are not only a vital part of the fabric of the British way of life, but we are also a global leader and one of the country’s most important soft power levers. We want to maintain Britain’s place on the world stage.”