Poker 'may go underground more' if casinos shut card rooms due to tax hikes
Posted by Gavin Smith on 29 Apr 2009 at 08:04
Higher poker taxes not only mean more money for the government, casino bosses have said, but could also see the game driven underground as casinos could end up closing their card room doors.
According to some executives we could end up with some more smoky back rooms and dodgy hangouts after the chancellor announced the tax on casino poker profits was going from 15 per cent to 50 per cent.
The chief executive of Rank Group, which is Britain's biggest casino poker operator, was sufficiently angered to write a letter to Alistair Darling. He said the soaring tax "may result in the closure of card rooms and that as a consequence, demand for games of poker will be satisfied in unregulated, unsupervised and untaxed premises".
Furthermore, he called on Darling to rethink the changes and also wants a face-to-face discussion on them.
Rank could well be among the firms hit the hardest by the new taxes as it has card rooms in about two-thirds of its 33 casinos, and has said around a quarter of a million people regularly play poker in them.
The new tax marks a new chapter in the history of poker's popularity in Britain, which has benefited from high-profile exposure thanks to the likes of James Bond film Casino Royale.
Casinos have been in on the action by charging entry fees for card rooms, or renting out the rooms, or alternatively making profit by taking an agreed slice of each pot.
Pubs have benefited too as they have been able to run poker events since the 2005 Gambling Act. However, the rules for pubs mean there's a limit of £10 per player.
Although casinos have seen plenty of players coming to their card rooms, they have faced stiff competition from virtual sites, with internet poker firms attracting gamers and often paying no tax or very little duty as they are often based offshore.
As far as Rank is concerned, the poker tax increases mean it will lose about £2.7 million as a firm. This is on top of losing other profit after tax on bingo was also increased, from 15 per cent to 22 per cent.
