Casinos Feel Squeeze From UK Poker Tax

In April a new casino tax was introduced in the UK and was designed to align the tax charged in casino poker rooms with taxes levied on other casino games. Prior to this, a 15 per cent VAT charge was placed on revenue made from casino poker rooms but the new tax rate works on a sliding scale starting at the previous 15 per cent rate and rising as high as 50 per cent. The new tax simply combines the revenue from other casino games with that from poker with the casinos with bigger revenues subject to the higher tax rates. This new tax regime is likely to predominately affect London and big city casinos with most of them having to pay the higher 50 per cent rate.
Casino operators are complaining that this tax doesn’t take into account the unique way casino poker rooms operate and believe its unjust to charge them 50 per cent on poker revenues even before running costs, staff wages and rent have been considered. Further complaints are that the bigger casino venues, such as Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London and Nottingham’s Dusk Till Dawn Poker Club are being targeted and will be the big losers with the only real beneficiaries being the vast number of illegal venues which have cropped up in abundance over the years.
Martin Ramskill, General Manager of the Grosvenor Victoria casino summed the situation up by saying “the government appears to have misunderstood the effect of its actions….by taking away the VAT rate and introducing normal gaming duty to poker rooms, it could mean that charges might now need to be raised to try and cover the extra costs. This may well have the effect of driving poker players to illegal card rooms that don’t pay taxes and may even create a demand for such venues, which runs counter to its stated aim of keeping criminality out of gaming”.