British punters will no longer be taxed for the privilege of having a bet after yesterday's national budget brought in sweeping changes to the betting duty system.
Chancellor Gordon Brown gave the news that the industry had been hoping for when he announced that bookmakers would be taxed on their gross profits at a rate of 15 per cent.
He is scrapping the current system in which the government collect a betting duty of 6.75 per cent from bookmakers which is passed on to punters in a nine per cent tax.
Bookmakers will absorb all the costs of the new tax under the new regime, which will come into effect from January 1st next year.
The move has been designed to stem the loss in betting turnover to the offshore market, which is already able to offer punters tax-free betting.
It is hoped that the major bookmaking firms will now ditch their offshore businesses and repatriate. One British bookmaker said turnover should go up 50 per cent.
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