The HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on Thursday released its latest UK Betting and Gaming Statistics report. The report reveals the government’s gambling tax take in the last six months (ending September 30) hit £1.463b. Thus up by a modest 0.5% from the same period last year.
The total haul is virtually unchanged but the individual gaming segments’ contributions to that total have shifted dramatically since April 1. Then the UK government had boosted the Remote Gaming Duty (RGD, viz. online casino revenue tax) from 15% to 21%. The government has told the RGD to compensate for its forced reduction in maximum stakes on the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT) in UK betting operators retail shops. This is a change that also occurred on April 1.
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HMRC’s RGD haul totaled £332.4m from April 1 to September 30. It is up from £263.9m in the same period last year. It has shown a whopping 26% year-on-year increase. Thus due to this change the online casino taxes accounted for 22.7% of HMRC’s total gambling haul. Taking it up from 18.1% in the same period last year.
HMRC’s latest report shows £270.3m derived from Machine Gaming Duty (MGD) that means down 24.2% year-on-year. HMRC’s online casino tax take in its fiscal H1 has risen by £68.5m while FOBT tax has fallen by £86.7m. But if we look at the three months ending September 30 as it featured a busier sports calendar meaning more opportunity for online cross-sell to casino, then the RGD was up 47.4% (a gain of £63.4m) whereas the MGD fell by one-third (a reduction of £61.1m).