Gambling companies don’t lose very often but nor are they usually playing a game of poker against the chancellor of the exchequer.
At next week’s budget, Rachel Reeves is widely expected to announce an increase in the duties that bookies and casinos pay to the Treasury, ending months of speculation and frenzied lobbying designed to sway the government.
The tax rise could cost the industry anything between about £1bn and £3bn, depending on how far Reeves turns the screw.
To some, that would be fair recompense for an out-of-control industry grown fat on misery. To others, it would be an anti-growth tax that will backfire, costing thousands of jobs and fuelling the illicit market.
The devil is in the detail.
How is gambling taxed? It’s complicated but, in essence, it works like this. When customers win, they aren’t taxed at all. For companies, there are three main rates of duty: Remote gaming duty (RGD), applied to online games of chance, is levied at 21% of profits applied to what they win from punters.
Machine games duty (MGD) applies to physical slot
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