UK Remote Gambling Tax to Double. Will the Industry Survive?

The UK government has decided to almost double online gambling taxes in a move that has shocked the industry.

In Autumn budget papers published Wednesday (25 November), it was revealed that remote gambling duty (RGD) which applies to gross gaming revenues from online casino games, will rise from the current 21% up to 40% beginning April 2026.

Additionally, the general betting duty (GBD) applying to remote sports betting revenue will be increasing from its current 15% to 25% from April 2027.  The changes are budgeted to boost Treasury coffers by an additional £1.1 billion by 2029-30.

This time last year, two influential think tanks proposed significant increases in gambling taxes. The recommendations didn’t find their way into the 2024 Autumn Budget, but the idea of a looming increase has been hanging over the industry like the Sword of Damocles ever since. But there had been hopes that more moderate increases than those suggested could be adopted.

One of the proposals, from the Social Market Foundation (SMF) recommended a doubling of RGD from 21% to 42%, reasoning such a move would raise an extra £1 billion annually. It seems this is the blue print the government has gone with.

Will there be an operator exodus?

The government doesn’t think so. They believe operators will be able to absorb 90% of the duty by reducing payouts, and still only lose a third of gross yield from players going elsewhere. So rather than taking a hit to profit, operators will just offer significantly worse odds on sports bets, and reduced returns on casino games and still retain a majority of customer turnover.

If bet365 is paying 4 to 1 for a Max Verstappen world championship while a reputed offshore bookie is paying 6 to 1, who do you bet with? The skilled advocates certainly won’t be wasting their time at bet36.

Skilled Advocates are a cohort of online gambler identified in a recent Gambling Commission study into the illegal online gambling market. They knowingly to use unlicensed operators where they can find better terms, better odds and less account restrictions.

As the differential in value offered by licensed and unlicensed operators grows, this cohort will only get bigger and participation in the licensed market will shrink.

Time will tell how many fewer operators this reduced market will support.