William Hill
Attacks High UK Online Gambling Tax
August 4 - Top UK land and online sportsbook, William Hill, which is licensed to
operate in the country by the UK Gambling Commission, has criticized the
government for the high 15 percent tax rate it has implemented on all online gambling
operations based in the country.
William Hill chief executive, Ralph Topping, has called on the UK government to
reduce the 'hefty' 15 percent tax rate paid by UK-based bookmakers on revenues generated by their
online betting interests, and warned against potential 'crackdowns' on
fixed-odds betting terminals.
Said Topping, 'In 2007 we paid 267 million pounds in taxes as well as more than 30
million pounds in levies to the UK's greyhound and horseracing industries,
not to mention the enormous salary bill for our 14,000 employees.'
Pre-tax profits in the bookmaker for its first half up to July 1 this year
dropped to 113.3 million pounds from 134.2 million for the same period last
year, despite the fact that its revenues increased from 493.1 million pounds
from 477.3 million pounds.
A contributing factor to the company's drop in profits has been attributed to a
period of heavy losses following recent football and horseracing results that
have seen UK punters 'cleaning up' at the bookies from such events including
Euro 2008, the Epsom Derby and Royal Ascot.
Profits in William Hill were also reportedly impacted by the 5
million pounds the company paid to sign up with Turf TV's live
horse racing coverage as well as lack-luster performance from
the company's telephone betting division.
'Our business must be allowed some room to grow which means the government must
look at its online gambling taxes from all angles. We believe that a 15
percent tax on online gambling-related gross profits is unnecessarily high
and makes us uncompetitive against offshore rivals,' said Topping.
Learn more about
William Hill here.
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