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The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has said that the new budget would cause thousands of job losses across the entire betting and gaming industry.
“The Chancellor’s Autumn Budget has been pitched as good news for horse racing, but in reality it spells thousands of job losses right across the entire betting and gaming industry and represents a major setback not only for that sector but for all the sports our industry supports,” Grainne Hurst, chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, said.
“Racing has seemingly been protected from higher betting duties. It sounds like a win, but anyone who understands how the sector operates knows that isn’t true. This exemption is cosmetic. Beneath the surface, this Budget delivers a devastating blow to the very ecosystem that racing relies on.
“What the Chancellor has actually done is impose one of the largest tax hikes on any industry in modern times. Online gaming duty will soar from 21% to 40% in 2026 – a 90% increase. Sports betting duty will rise from 15% to 25% the following year, up nearly 67%. The Treasury expects £1.1 billion a year in additional tax by 2029. These are not harmless revenue raisers; they will fundamentally reshape the market, and not for the better.
“Steep tax rises layered on top of major new regulation will not make gambling safer. They will do the opposite – pushing ordinary players out of the regulated sector, which protects consumers, and into the illegal, unsafe and highly harmful black market, where none of those safeguards exist. This is particularly worrying given that gambling harm in the UK remains low at 0.4%, according to both the NHS Health Survey and the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. Driving customers into an unregulated black market risks this.
“Even the Treasury predicts a £500m increase in unlicensed activity and has allocated just £26m to counter it. That sum is a drop in the ocean given the scale of the threat, which this very Budget will accelerate.”
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