Most areas of the world have very unfriendly tax laws when it comes to gaming and gambling.  After all, the extremely lucrative practice of providing brick and mortar poker rooms and gaming establishments where players generally lose the majority of their money and profits are exorbitantly high can afford to absorb a tremendous amount of taxes.  With the focus on extremely high profit margins, poker rooms and casinos have traditionally been known to bow to pressure from government forces to capitulate to these higher tax rates.  But new developments in the United Kingdom have put the pressure on new and existing poker rooms and casinos of all sizes, as the rates for tax revenue levied on gaming earnings continues to climb to ridiculous levels.

The government has increased the gaming duty taxes for physical casinos and poker rooms of smaller size and revenue from 12.5% up to 15%, an increase of two and half percent overall.  While this increase does not seem so great on paper, the 12.5% that was previously required was already pushing the limit, as most gaming establishments generally pay between 8% and 11% in taxes in areas such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City.  The already exorbitant rates for small casinos will force many to go out of business as they increase.

For larger casinos, the 40% tax that was already in place will now be raised to a staggering and unbelievable 50% tax rate, affecting high rolling casinos such as the Mayfair, which grosses in the neighborhood of $19.7 million per year.  While it is doubtful that the larger casinos would shut down in light of these new taxes, many of the smaller casinos will certainly fall by the wayside.  Many small casino operators reported having budgetary problems and difficulties meeting overhead already, with the increase it is very likely that not only would existing casinos begin to shut down, but new casinos currently being planned might have to reevaluate their commercial intentions for providing poker rooms and casinos in the United Kingdom.  With this focus on collecting extreme amounts of tax revenue from gambling and gaming establishments, all the work and planning that the previous administration in the United Kingdom put into turning the European Union into a more gaming friendly economy has been a wasted effort.

With online poker rooms required to pay taxes of 15% or more in comparison with the 2% to 3% of available offshore, combined with the massive rise in physical casino taxes, it is very likely that gaming and gambling in the United Kingdom has a very limited lifespan remaining.

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