Latest news with #BettingAndGamingCouncil
The Sun
2 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
Proposed tax raid on gambling firms would kill jobs & damage British sports, warned industry chief
A PROPOSED tax raid on gambling firms would obliterate jobs and damage beloved British sports, an industry chief warned yesterday. Grainne Hurst, CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council, implored Chancellor Rachel Reeves to reject a 'headline-grabbing plan' by ex-PM Gordon Brown to hike levies gambling. She blasted: 'In 2001, Gordon Brown binned the outdated betting tax. 'The result? Companies came back, thousands of jobs were created, the Treasury took more, and the industry went global. 'Now, he's abandoned that common sense in favour of a headline-grabbing plan that would do the exact opposite - costing jobs, damaging sport and driving customers to the unsafe, unregulated black market.' Mr Brown called for a £3 billion tax raid on the sector to pay for measures to tackle child poverty, despite the Government spending £313 billion on welfare a year. He based his calls on a paper by the centre left wonk tank the IPPR, which wants betting duty to go from 15 per cent to 25 per cent on sports and 21 per cent to 50 per cent on online bingo, poker and slots. Ms Hurst cautioned the move would hammer Britain's betting and gaming sector, which already pays £4bn in taxes, generates £6.8bn for the economy and bankrolls sports including horse racing, rugby league, darts and snooker. The industry also funds a £100m-a-year programme for research, prevention and treatment of problem gambling. 1
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on gambling: a public reckoning with the dark side of this highly profitable industry is overdue
No one should be surprised that the highly profitable UK gambling industry is intensifying its lobbying efforts, with a view to avoiding both higher taxation and stricter regulation of its activities, including advertising. Establishing a presence, and a voice, in parliament is what the leaders of growing business sectors do, and have done at least since the 18th century, when the brewing interest began to shift from a loose grouping of MPs with family links to breweries, into a national campaign. In the five years since Michael Dugher, a former Labour MP and shadow culture secretary, became chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, the £11.5bn-a-year industry has seen off a Tory white paper that threatened to curb its advertising, and resisted pressure for the higher taxation that many expected last year. Now, with Rachel Reeves reviewing gambling taxes in advance of the autumn budget, and amid growing calls for ministers to be more active in addressing gambling harms, including addiction, the organisation and its supporters are making fresh efforts to influence MPs in their favour. This week, Gordon Brown threw his weight behind demands for higher taxes to be levied on an 'undertaxed' sector, and for the money to be used to meet the roughly £3bn cost of ditching rules that restrict some benefits to a family's first two children. This is the case also made by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank, and both it and the former prime minister are right to stress the urgency of child poverty-reducing measures. The linkage between highly profitable gambling businesses, some of which are based offshore, and grim levels of deprivation, is powerful in part because high street gambling premises, including adult gaming centres packed with slot machines, are concentrated in poor areas. But calls for change are not confined to the political left. The cross-party, pro-market Social Market Foundation also thinks the industry should make a bigger contribution. Like the IPPR, it pinpoints the remote gaming duty levied on online casinos, with an identical recommendation that this should jump from 21% to 50%. Currently, this tax accounts for £1.2bn of the £3.6bn in gambling duties overall (including the national lottery), and the thinktanks are right that targeting this form of gambling would be far more beneficial than the harmonisation of rates that has also been discussed. Just as alcohol, spirits and beer are taxed differently, sports betting and gambling should continue to be recognised as distinct activities. Simplifying the tax system, which is a motive for harmonisation, cannot be regarded as the most important thing, when gambling affects so many lives in troubling ways. Taxes aside, the campaign being led by Labour's Andy Burnham in Manchester, and Dawn Butler in London, for councils to have more say over the opening of new gambling premises, is overdue but no less welcome for that. Ministers should change the law so that local politicians have more power over planning in this highly sensitive area. Used as they are to betting shops on high streets, and football shirts emblazoned with gambling sponsors' logos, many voters are probably unaware that regulation in the UK is strikingly lax, compared with other countries. That is all the more reason for politicians to turn down lobbyists' invitations, and focus instead on the need for a public reckoning with this highly profitable industry's harms.
Sky News
6 days ago
- Business
- Sky News
Chancellor doesn't rule out raising gambling taxes after report said it could lift 500,000 children out of poverty
The chancellor has declined to rule out raising taxes on gambling after a thinktank said the move could raise £3.2bn for the public coffers and cover the cost of lifting 500,000 children out of poverty. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), hiking taxes on online casinos and slot machines could raise enough revenue to fund scrapping the two-child benefit cap, with the organisation arguing that there is "no other measure which provides comparable headline child poverty reduction per pound spent". The proposals have been backed by former prime minister Gordon Brown, but the Betting and Gaming Council says they are "economically reckless" and could drive punters towards the black market. The chancellor has not ruled out taking forward the proposals, telling broadcasters that a review into gambling taxes is under way, and policies will be set out at the budget in the autumn. The IPPR says in its report that the chancellor should consider increasing taxes on online casinos from 21% to 50% and raising those on slots and gaming machines from 20% to 50%, as well as raising general betting duty on non-racing bets from 15% to 25% which it said would bring other sports in line with the rates paid by horse racing. These measures could bring in £3.2bn for the Treasury, which would cover the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap. The cap was introduced by the Conservative government in April 2017, and it restricts universal credit and child tax credits to the first two children in a family, where the third or subsequent children are born after this date. According to the thinktank's analysis of data from the Department for Work and Pensions, 115,000 families are affected, with an average financial impact of £60 per week. Overall, the policy is keeping over 450,000 in poverty currently, which is set to rise to 550,000 by the end of the decade, it adds. The IPPR says raising these taxes is unlikely to reduce overall revenue for the Exchequer because firms are likely to "seek to protect their bottom lines by worsening odds", which means a "strong possibility of higher government revenue" than their forecasts expect. 'An investment in our children's future' Henry Parkes, principal economist and head of quantitative research at IPPR, said in a statement: "The gambling industry is highly profitable, yet is exempt from paying VAT and often pays no corporation tax, with many online firms based offshore. It is also inescapable that gambling causes serious harm, especially in its most high-stakes forms. "Set against a context of stark and rising levels of child poverty, it only feels fair to ask this industry to contribute a little more." Progressive campaign group 38 Degrees has started a petition calling on the government to implement the proposals, and former prime minister Gordon Brown said in a statement: "Gambling will not build a brighter future for our children. But taxing it properly might just get them properly nourished. Decent clothes. A warm bed. And the full stomachs that let them fill their brains in school. "Taxing the betting industry to support our children won't be a gamble. It will be an investment in their future. One where everyone wins." 4:38 Proposals 'would do more harm than good' The government has long been facing calls from its own backbenches to scrap the two-child benefit cap, and has not ruled it out doing so as part of a broader package of measures to tackle child poverty, due to be published in the autumn. Speaking to broadcasters this afternoon, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she speaks to the former premier "regularly", and like him is, "deeply concerned around the levels of child poverty in Britain". She continued: "We're a Labour government. Of course we care about child poverty. That's why one of the first things we did as a government was to set up a child poverty taskforce that will be reporting in the autumn and respond to it then. "And on gambling taxes, we've already launched a review into gambling taxes. We're taking evidence on that at the moment and, again, we'll set out our policies in the normal way, in our budget later this year." But the Betting and Gaming Council says raising taxes on its members is not a sound way of funding measures to reduce poverty, with a spokesperson saying the proposals are "economically reckless, factually misleading, and risk driving huge numbers to the growing, unsafe, unregulated gambling black market, which doesn't protect consumers and contributes zero tax". They added: "Further tax rises, fresh off the back of government reforms which cost the sector over a billion in lost revenue, would do more harm than good - for punters, jobs, growth and public finances."
BBC News
6 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Gordon Brown calls for gambling tax to cut child poverty
Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has repeated his call for higher taxes on gambling to lift half a million children out of has backed a think tank report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), saying the move could raise £3.2bn to fund scrapping the two-child limit and benefit who was also chancellor under Tony Blair, said taxing online casinos and slot machines would be "the first crucial step in the war we must wage against child poverty".A spokesperson for the Betting and Gaming Council rejected the proposals, describing them as "economically reckless" and claiming they could push gamblers onto the black market. The Department for Media, Culture and Sport has been contacted for comment. The two-child limit and benefit cap affects 1.6 million children and is blamed for rising rates of food insecurity by anti-poverty campaigners, who say getting rid of the cap is the "single most effective" step the chancellor could take to reduce child two-child limit restricts child tax credit and universal credit (UC) to the first two children in most households, while the benefit cap sees the amount of benefits a household receives reduced to ensure claimants do not get more than the government is expected to publish a child poverty strategy in autumn, and children's charities and campaign groups have been united in calling for the two-child limit to be in the Guardian, Brown states: "Britain is now enduring the worst levels of child poverty since modern records began, even worse than in the Thatcher-Major years, and far worse than in most European countries..."These are austerity's children, the victims of 14 years of Tory rule, an era whose most vindictive act was to treat newborn third and fourth children as second-class citizens, depriving them of all the income support available to their first and second siblings."Flagging that child poverty is set to rise to "a wholly unacceptable" 4.8 million, Brown urges Chancellor Rachel Reeves to make "a straightforward budget choice" to raise taxes on online gambling companies to fund tackling child proposals focus on online gambling firms - the fast-growing part of the industry - and avoid any changes to bingo or lotteries. The IPPR suggested increasing taxes on online casinos from 21% to 50% and raising those on slots and gaming machines from 20% to 50%.Many online gambling firms are based offshore and pay little or no UK corporation tax, the IPPR report flags, and already benefits from unique tax advantages, including a complete exemption from VAT. The IPPR said raising gambling taxes in the way they suggested would be unlikely to reduce overall government Parkes, principal economist and head of quantitative research at IPPR, said: "The gambling industry is highly profitable, yet is exempt from paying VAT and often pays no corporation tax, with many online firms based offshore. "It is also inescapable that gambling causes serious harm, especially in its most high-stakes forms."Set against a context of stark and rising levels of child poverty, it only feels fair to ask this industry to contribute a little more."But a spokesperson for the Betting and Gaming Council said they rejected the "economically reckless, factually misleading" proposals which they insisted "risk driving huge numbers to the growing, unsafe, unregulated gambling black market, which doesn't protect consumers and contributes zero tax".They added: "Further tax rises, fresh off the back of government reforms which cost the sector over a billion in lost revenue, would do more harm than good - for punters, jobs, growth and public finances." Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.
The Sun
24-06-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Charities share staggering £450,000 donation following Royal Ascot BGC pledge
A host of top UK charities will share a remarkable £450,000, thanks to Betting and Gaming Council members. For the sixth year on the spin, the BGC announced that its members will give away every penny of profit from win and each-way bets on the Britannia Stakes at last week's Royal Ascot meeting. 3 Champion jockey teamed up with Saeed bin Suroor to ride Arabian Story to victory in Thursday's race, staving off the threat of La Botte to win by a neck. In a race with 30 runners - coming on a day where FIVE favourites landed - the winner coming in at 15/2 wasn't necessarily a win for the bookmakers, given only three runners - including La Botte - went off shorter odds. But it's that competitiveness in the packed race that ensured the bookmakers remained in profit across the race and that is terrific news for the charities. Prostate Cancer UK, Missing People, the SAS Regimental Association, Ascot Racecourse Supports, Racing to School, Greenhouse Sports and Tempus Novo will all now benefit from the stunning £450,000 donation. That donation coming from BCG members, including Flutter (Paddy Power, Betfair, Sky Bet), Entain (Ladbrokes, Coral), Evoke (888 William Hill), Kindred (Unibet), Betway, Rank Group (Grosvenor Sport), Virgin Bet, LivescoreBet, Star Sports and QuinnBet - as well as with the support of Tote and Bet with Ascot. The final figure now takes the total amount raised through this very initiative to an astonishing £3.6million for charitable causes. Including other campaigns, the BGC has now raised a whopping £6.5 million for good causes since its formation back in 2019. While BGC members also help fund horseracing, with a remarkable £350m a year through sponsorship, media rights and the betting levy. Grainne Hurst, CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council, said: 'It's brilliant to see BGC members once again coming together to support such a wide range of charities that make a real difference in communities right across the UK. "A huge thank you goes to all our members who took part, their customers who placed a bet on the Britannia Stakes, and of course to Ascot for their continued partnership in this important initiative. "Together, we've now raised over £3.6 million through the Britannia Stakes alone, and more than £6.5 million overall. These substantial donations highlight the real commitment of the BGC and its members to supporting charities across sport, racing, health, and the veteran community. "We know how much this funding means to the organisations involved, and we're incredibly proud to play our part in supporting the incredible work they do." Jo Youle OBE, Chief Executive of Missing People said: 'Thank you to the Betting and Gaming Council, and its members, for the incredible generosity for Missing People via the Britannia Stakes. 'Someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK. Your support means the charity can be there for people in crisis who are missing, and for families still searching. No matter what the situation, this donation will mean that vital information, guidance and support will be available when it is needed most, and for however long it takes. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who made this possible." Felicity Barnard, Chief Executive at Ascot Racecourse, added: 'We are delighted to play host to this brilliant initiative which continues to raise vital funds and awareness for charities. The monies raised are helping our Ascot Racecourse Supports charity/community programme make a real difference to the many local and equine organisations that we support.' Prostate Cancer UK Chief Executive Laura Kerby said: 'We're proud of our long-term relationship with the Betting and Gaming Council and are hugely grateful to them and their members for this generous donation on such a prestigious day of racing. 'Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer in England and a disease that affects 1 in 8 men, but an early diagnosis could save your life. 'For several years now the BGC have helped us raise crucial awareness, and substantial funds which will make a massive difference to men affected by prostate cancer. Funds raised will support our groundbreaking screening trial, TRANSFORM, which will find the best way to screen men for the disease - so that one day, all men will be invited for regular tests, and more men will find it early enough to be cured. Thanks to everyone for their continued support.' Steve Freer, Tempus Novo CEO added: 'We are absolutely delighted and deeply honoured to be part of this prestigious event at Royal Ascot. Our sincere thanks go to the Betting and Gaming Council for their generous support. 'The funding we've received is making a tangible, lasting impact. Every penny is helping to drive transformational change in the criminal justice system by supporting people with convictions into sustainable employment. This is critical work—without these opportunities, many are left with little choice but to return to crime upon release. 'Thanks to this support, we're seeing lives changed, futures rebuilt, and a real shift in how rehabilitation can work in practice.' John Blake, CEO of Racing to School said: 'The beneficiaries, Trustees, and small staff team at Racing to School are hugely grateful to the Betting and Gaming Council, its members, and everyone who enjoyed a bet on this year's Britannia Stakes for their generosity. If you didn't back the winner, we hope you still enjoyed the thrill of watching the race in the knowledge that you have supported Racing to School and the six other beneficiary charities to continue their work. 'The funds will have an immediate impact to support the learning of some of the 17,500 participants of our Education Programmes who will take their first steps onto a racecourse this year which, we hope, will spark the beginning of a lifelong love of the sport.' Greenhouse Sports CEO, Don Barrell, said: 'We're incredibly grateful to the Betting and Gaming Council for selecting Greenhouse Sports as a beneficiary of this year's Britannia Stakes – and to everyone whose bets helped raise an incredible amount for charity. 'Like everyone at Royal Ascot, we believe in the power of sport. But for the young people we work with, it's about more than the game – it's about having a trusted adult in their corner. 'Our full-time Coach-Mentors are embedded in schools across some of the UK's most disadvantaged areas. They're there every day, year after year – building relationships, keeping young people engaged in education, boosting confidence, and helping them believe in their future. 'With child poverty at a record high, this support couldn't be more important. It means we can reach more young people – and help transform their life chances. 'Thank you for making that possible.' John Allcock, Secretary of the SAS Regimental Association (SASRA) said, 'We are grateful and humbled by the actions of the bookmaking members of the Betting and Gaming Council in this our 80th anniversary year. 'Extraordinary service creates extraordinary need, requiring extraordinary support. The discreet nature of the association and its support to both veteran and serving membership, and their families are considerable and grow year on year. 'This donation will make a significant difference to the lives of those who have gone (and continue to go), always a little further. We thank you so much.' Remember to gamble responsibly A responsible gambler is someone who: For help with a gambling problem, call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 or go to to be excluded from all UK-regulated gambling websites.
