Independent UK bookmaker JenningsBet has slammed authorities plans to introduce a statutory levy for certified playing operators.
At present, UK-certified operators pay a voluntary levy to elevate budget for research, prevention and remedy to address playing–associated harm.
In the authorities’s white paper evaluation of the Gambling Act, however, the new plan is for operators to be subjected to the levy on a obligatory prison basis.
Under the proposal, on-line playing operators might be required to pay 1% in their annual gross playing yield (GGY) in the direction of the levy, at the same time as land-primarily based totally operators which face better constant prices might be required to make contributions a decrease price of round 0.4%.
In December, playing minister Stuart Andrew cautioned the statutory levy changed into on the right track to be delivered via way of means of summer time season 2024.
JenningsBet reaction
JenningsBet head of more secure playing Vicky Knight (pictured) set out her reaction to the proposals through a weblog put up shared via way of means of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) alternate body.
“For over a long time bookmakers like JenningsBet were proud to pay their element helping a voluntary levy which budget remarkable charities tackling playing–associated harm,” Knight stated.
The gadget is “particular to our sector,” she added, and increases hundreds of thousands of kilos each 12 months for charities preventing playing–associated harms.
The creation of a statutory levy, however, “would possibly certainly preclude our cappotential to do that, in place of helping,” she argued.
Knight cautioned the 0.4% levy on land-primarily based totally operators changed into “a sting withinside the tail for impartial retail bookmakers like JenningsBet, which face being charged disproportionately excessive levy prices, which, if enforced, ought to threaten store closures and task losses.”
While a price of 0.4% “may not appear like a lot,” Knight stated, “impartial bookmakers’ margins are certainly now no longer huge sufficient to swallow that fee, on pinnacle of all their different prices, with out risking closures and task losses.”
Level gambling field
Knight additionally pointed to what she sees as an choppy distribution of the weight throughout the United Kingdom playing sector.
While bookmakers are set to be pressured to pay 0.4% of GGY, the 521 Adult Gaming Centres and Family Entertainment Centres withinside the UK will as a substitute pay simply 0.1% in the direction of the levy, she stated.
“We each function at the excessive avenue, and feature comparable working prices and pressures, but impartial bookmakers are predicted to make contributions 4 instances greater.”
Comparisons become “even greater galling” whilst along with the National Lottery, Knight added, for the reason that the operator has contributed simply 0.01% of its GGY in the direction of the levy during the last 3 years.
“Independent bookies like JenningsBet aren’t in a role to make contributions hundreds of thousands, however we’re happy with the contribution that we and our workforce make,” Knight concluded.
UK financial system downturn
Among a plethora of different sectors, the land-primarily based totally playing enterprise withinside the UK has suffered in latest years amid more and more more hard macroeconomic situations and decrease excessive–avenue footfall.
In her weblog put up, Knight mentioned that on account that 2019, the range of impartial making a bet stores withinside the UK has fallen via way of means of round 23%, from 696 to 536, with many failing to continue to exist the Covid-19 pandemic.
Together, the final stores hire round 3,000 workforce participants and generate £5.5m in enterprise costs and greater than £25m in taxes, she added.
Since 2018, the range of impartial bookmaker corporations withinside the UK has additionally fallen from one hundred forty five to simply 82, marking “the lack of corporations that play an crucial function at the excessive avenue,” Knight stated.
According to a latest document from the Financial Times, control consultancy Begbies Traynor estimates that there are greater than 47,000 UK corporations in “important monetary distress” and nearing fall apart as of the start of 2024.
A in addition 540,000 corporations have been stated to be facing “great monetary distress”.
Rapid will increase in simple prices like electricity bills, in addition to sustained hikes in hobby costs and inflation, have led an more and more more huge range of small corporations into monetary problem during the last 12 months.