«Changes in Casinos Freeplays from August, 1

Great changes are expected in online casinos sphere in the UK in august. The UK government will reportedly impose tax on freeplays and corresponding discounts, which are used for attracting new customers and retaining already existing ones. This tax was already removed from the UK’s Finance Bill 2017, but this won’t prevent the government from imposing the above-mentioned tax.

Initially the tax on freeplays was considered a part of this Finance Bill, after proposal of HM Revenue and Customs. Now these changes are expected to be added while calculating profit of licensed operators. This tax will be added to the annual RGD (Remote Gaming Duty), which casino operators had to pay.

UK’s current legislation makes casino operators, belonging to this country, use several bonuses for attracting new customers and motivating the existing ones. Those bonuses are not taxable. According to the UK Government, casinos’ status quo is going to change, because the new rules must correspond with the General Betting Duty, which says that free bets should be subjected to the regular taxation.

The initial version of the above-mentioned Finance Bill was launched in March 2017. The next month some provisions were removed, including ones about freeplays tax. The reason for that was the reported insufficient time for proper discussion before the general election. In April many analysts predicted the return of this proposal about tax on freeplays, and they turned out to be right.

At the moment several parts of the initial Finance Bill are expected to return, when the local government comes back after the summer vacations. Those returning provisions concern freeplays tax as well.

This new version of Finance Bill, including the provision on freeplays tax, is going to be presented in September. The Remote Gaming Duty, which was amended earlier, is expected to be applied again. To cut the story short, all casinos operators, licensed in the UK, are expected to be subjected to the new version of the RGD.

It all means, that UK-based casino operators and gamblers have about a month to get ready for the changes of taxation rules concerning freeplays. Major casinos have already expressed their discontent about the coming changes, because they will burden them greatly. Before those changes will come into effect, UK-facing casinos operators have already been paying a tax since 2014.

The changes in the taxation regime will reportedly bring about £345 million from 2017 to 2021.