Hiking taxes on online casino gambling would raise the government as much as £900m and has the support of over half of UK voters, according to a report from an influential think tank.
The study by centrist think tank the Social Market Foundation (SMF), proposed a doubling of the rate of tax on online gambling, known as Remote Gaming Duty, from 21 per cent to 42 per cent.
Gambling online is linked to “higher rates of harm” that other areas of the sector, such as the lottery or betting at sports events, and was used by a particularly high proportion of problem gamblers, the paper argued.
The SMF’s proposals come after the IPPR, a left-leaning think thank, tabled even more aggressive framework for taxing the gambling sector, that centred around double taxes on industries that caused “higher harm”.
