A number of newspapers in the UK have recently reported that the government intends going ahead with taxing all free spins and bonuses being awarded by online casinos. Online casinos offer free spins, bonuses and other freebies in an endeavor to attract players to their sites.
The reason given by Her Majesty’s Government for the new tax that is expected to impose an additional burden of £100 million on the online gambling industry, is the fact that bonuses and other freebies offered by land based betting operators are already subject to tax and they have to ensure a “level playing field” between land based and online gambling.
It is the intention of the Revenue and Customs Department to enforce the additional taxes from autumn of 2017.
The chief of the Remote Gaming association, Clive Hawkswood, revealed that the government had budgeted tax revenue of £300 million from the point of consumption taxes being levied on offshore operators by way of 15% Remote Gaming Duty. Hawkswood also claimed that the industry is already paying double the amount as since the tax was introduced, the industry has been growing by approximately 10% a year, which has contributed to the higher tax receipts.
One of the smaller online bookmaking companies has revealed that the point of consumption tax was already costing it an amount of £10 million a year. The larger industry companies are paying much more than that amount with public records showing that William Hill paid a massive amount of £54 million last year.