iGaming Daily

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We just cannot escape conference season. Two weeks back, it was the greatest show in gaming at SBC Summit 2025. Last week, we checked in with Ed Davies' Lib Dems, and today we're heading to Merseyside for the Labour Party Conference. While Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to tell delegates he has a plan to fix the foundations of a stalling nation, some will be questioning whether introducing digital ID really is the popular policy to turn around what looks like dire polling figures.

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But aside from that, our attention is fixed on UK gambling and whether Labour confirms a move to scrap the controversial two-child benefit cap, a decision that could all but guarantee future tax rises on betting in gaming. Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement platform. Are you heading to G2E? Well, if so, OptiMove is hosting an exclusive sweepstakes industry breakfast.

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get market insights and hear from some of the top names in the industry, and you can find out more on this can't miss event in the description for this episode. I'm Charlie Horner, and jumping right into this one with me are SBC News Editor Ted Omclay and iGaming Experts journalist Christian Lee. Ted, how's things? Did you have a nice weekend? Yeah, it was alright, thank you. I was in Nottingham for my dad's wedding, actually, as it happens. Yeah, quite eventful.

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And uh luckily that also meant that I missed the forest game, which was there on at the same time as I'm sure you were, you were aware of Charlie. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I was also in Nottingham on Saturday for an equally cheery event. Christian, how are you? How's things? Yeah, I'm good. Thanks. I was pretty locked into the Ryder Cup this weekend, so that took up most of my time.

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Yeah, a spectacular win for Europe, despite a US resurgence on the last day. But let's jump into the Labour Party conference, because that also kicked off this weekend. And we've spoken about it so much on the show in the last couple of months, there's so much speculation around the budget. But Ted, maybe to kick things off, are we reading a bit too much into this conference in terms of what news we can gather from it?

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Um, yes and no, think, because I don't think we're very likely to get any solid statements and policies outlined around gambling at this conference, simply because I think in the grand scheme of things, the Labour government has far bigger fish to fry in a, in, on, know, regarding international politics, the economy, uh domestic politics, the immigration and the, and the battle against this, the growing reform movement. em

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really, yeah, gambling is probably not going to be front and centre for them. I think what the party conference will be better at for us is kind of gauging where things indirectly might lead. If you see what I mean, I know we're going to talk about this more in a bit, but obviously you mentioned the two-child benefit cap. It's been widely touted that gambling, tax rises on gambling could be used to pay for that being scrapped as part of a wider measure to elevate child

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childhood poverty in the UK, rates of which have been growing quite a lot over the past couple of decades. So it's things like that really. It's looking more at the indirect effects of policies that might be announced. I'm not very confident that we're going to get, Reeves is currently doing, as we're recording this, Rachel Reeves is doing a speech, I think, at the conference. I doubt she's going to go straight up there and say...

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And by the way, everyone, here's our planned merger of the betting and gaming duties or whatever. Anything like that is going to come in the budget. They're going to be focused on lots of other issues. I think what we can use this conference for is kind of to gauge what might come, but we're not going to get anything solid. Yeah. I mean, talking about gauging the things that might come. Christian, you broke the story late last week. I think it was 101 Labour MPs signing a letter.

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to the chancellor asking her to raise taxes on, I think it was online slot specifically, but could you just bring us up to date on this? What's the latest and what does that tell us about maybe what's going to happen at conference this week? Yeah. So as you said, it was 101 Labour MPs, mainly backbenchers. It was led by Alex Ballinger MP and Dr. Becky Cooper. They're both part of the all parliamentary group on gambling reform. And yet it was mainly on

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It was online gambling that was sort of in their crosshairs. They argued that the government should take a polluter-pays approach to tax and online gambling. And they argued that online gambling in the UK faces a much lighter financial burden compared to comparative markets such as like the Netherlands. And what they're sort of doing is they're piggybacking on what Gordon Brown has said in the past and also the Lib Dems at their party conference last week called for doubling of online gaming duty.

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And it's sort of around the fact that I think Alex Ballinger said that no child should grow up in poverty while Gambon is so profitable. So they're arguing that by placing tax on the Gambon industry, the funding should be directly ring fence for going towards tackling child poverty, such as removing the two child benefit cap that will get onto us later on in the episode. Yeah. mean, it's a, in terms of

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tagging gambling onto another political issue. Child poverty is certainly one of those that um you struggle to argue against. think it would take a pretty cold-hearted approach to not want to end child poverty. Linking it to gambling and gambling tax, the industry might say that raising taxes on gambling is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to the cost that...

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ending child poverty would take. Ted, you noted a little bit earlier that obviously the Chancellor is speaking as we record, m but do think gambling will be brought up in any of the speeches, maybe not just from government ministers but maybe in some of the uh smaller conference rooms this week? Do think that there is a mounting momentum around this gambling tax this week?

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Well, something we have seen so far is that, this, you know, again, this is no sign of anything concrete, but it might be just a sign of what some general opinions are, kind of linked to what Christian just mentioned of how many MPs em were supporting gambling tax increases last week and how vocal the all-party parliamentary group on gambling reform, which isn't obviously, as we've said in previous podcasts, is not just a labor.

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organization, even obviously it's an all party group and it's chaired by a conservative Ian Duncan Smith. So that kind of shows you a bit of a cross party support that these measures can gain as well. But yeah, specifically, sorry, regarding the conference, there have been some attempts to file motions to have certain issues discussed, one of which was gambling, as well as some of ones around taxation and things that have to link in with this. The gambling motions were rejected. So there's not going to be anything like there's

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not going be a huge big addressing of gambling as like a center issue at the conference. Cause as we said earlier, they've got lots of other things to discuss, but that does show you that there are clearly people in labor. It's probably probably a lot of those MPs who we mentioned earlier, 101 probably involved in some of the motions here around gambling to discuss that. It shows you that there's a lot of voices around this within the party who are going to carry on putting pressure on the government who want to see.

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reform go further than the gambling at review white paper who are concerned about advertising, who are concerned about the prevalence of betting shops and in particular adult gaming sensors, slot machine sensors basically on the high streets. They want to more local powers to combat that. So there's definitely voices that are seen in these motions, which even though they were rejected, obviously the fact that they were there just shows you where some of the

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the wind might be blowing, guess. What we've seen so far, I mean, I had a bit of a look over the agenda. think Lucy Powell spoke yesterday, I think, on a panel. But from what I understand, I don't think she mentioned much about gambling. I think they were discussing other sort of things. yeah, these, as you said, Charlie, these conferences are very wide ranging. There's lots of smaller sort of discussions and debates going off on the sidelines. All of the APBG member MPs will probably be there.

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There will be discussions being had around that. So yeah, even though it might not take center stage, you're not going to see Stammer or Reeves say anything m solid about gambling at this event. The conversations will be going on a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, it might be in the, the fringe events, like you say, Ted. mean, I can't imagine Keir Stammer is going to announce a new gambling tax rate during his, big flagship speech.

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which will close the conference. So I think we can park any idea that we're going to get any concrete policy out of this. But we have alluded to the two child benefit cap as being somewhat linked to our sector, uh particularly because of this framing that has been portrayed in the media and from what Gordon Brown has said and this letter. Christian, what shall we be looking out for in Keir Starmer's speech then?

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And why is the two child benefit cap such a focus of attention for the UK gambling? think as Ted mentioned earlier, it's not a case of we're not expecting him to anything direct. It's more what we can read between the lines. So I think the two child benefit cap will definitely be at the forefront of his speech just because as you said in your intro, there's a lot of mounting pressure on Starm at the moment. He's definitely not polling very well. So if he could come out and make sort of a headline grabbing announcement that they're getting rid of the

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to child benefit car. It should garner a lot of positivity among the public who, as like you said before, anyone who's attempting to tackle child poverty, can't really decry them from that on whichever side of the political spectrum you're on. then gambling and child poverty have somehow become sort of linked together. So I think if you just say that then it is that final nail in the coffin that we should expect gambling tax rises and

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Again, as said, the positive PR that you can get from this could mean that gambling is sort of the collateral damage of that in long term. Well, ahead of Rachel Reeves' speech today, she did do the media round and she was on the Today program this morning with the BBC and she did talk very briefly about the two child benefit caps. She said, we will reduce child poverty, but we've got to make sure the numbers add up.

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people can trust me to ensure that that always happens. she's kind of skirting around the issue and saying, well, can you all just wait to the budget, please? em And in turn, talking about waiting, give us a couple of minutes and we'll be back after our ad break and we'll continue this discussion. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. I said before the break that we're going to have to wait until the budget ultimately to find out what

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what happens with this and there'll be no settlements this week. But what are the latest assumptions by the sector on the budget and what actual tax measures do you think will be implemented? Ted, what are you hearing? em Yeah, this is a complicated one because, and I mentioned this on a previous podcast, the Treasury has been very assertive in saying that speculation around gambling tax rises are just that, just speculation.

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They made that statement on the same day as there was those horse racing strikes, which was obviously a very unprecedented move that the sport took in protest of what it believes will be uh a hefty tax on its own activities. That's also kind of driving a bit of a wedge between themselves and their traditional eye in the bookmaking sector, of course, on completely separate issue. But yeah, I mean, I just think that

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With the various calls we've seen for Labour to scrap the two-child benefit cap, as we said, as part of a wider mission to elevate child poverty, a very understandable policy, to be honest with you, both from a moral and a political standpoint, I think, for Labour. With the discussions around that and the need for the government to raise all the money to do this, with gambling tax being widely touted as a way to do that, I do think it is almost inevitable that

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When the budget comes around on the 26th November, we are going to see some changes to how how gambling is taxed, how it's, how the tax system is structured. I think, yeah, the most likely outcome is going to be a merger of the three types of betting duty. it betting duty of 15 % pool betting duty of 15 % and remote gaming duty of 21%. Perhaps there'll be a bit of leeway for horse racing in there because I think the government is

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a bit more receptive to the fact that horse racing is obviously a sport. It's got quite a lot of cultural heritage. It's very deeply connected to the rural communities, which even though those aren't historically labors of heartland, I think the government will probably want to keep a bit of community engagement in there and recognize the interconnectedness there. But yeah, I think overall we should expect some tax rises, particularly on maybe just some of the largest operators at least.

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when the budget comes around as much as the treasury is saying that, this is just speculation for now. It seems they're getting backed into a corner on that one with their objectives and what they need to do to achieve those. look, I want to open this up to both of you, Ted and Christian, but you've both been covering earnings calls for Q2. We'll very soon be hearing from gambling CEOs as they...

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start to publish their Q3s in the coming weeks. Do you get the sense that leadership are kind of preparing for the worst case scenario in terms of these tax rises and that it might not just be the pooling of the three taxes, it's, know, those higher tax rate could be even higher. Christian, maybe you can see first. think they have to do is like any business, you've got to prepare for every sort of scenario at any moment. And I believe both Flur and Enten.

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Tax rises in the UK were mentioned as part of their investor calls for Q2. And it's something that they have experience with if they're in different markets across Europe, because Europe has seen similar tax rises, for example, in the Netherlands, where those tax rises started the year and also planned tax rise in the start of next year, which I believe the Dutch market was named checked by both companies as an example of where perhaps tax rises haven't had their desired effects because the Netherlands

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tax revenue has actually decreased following this tax rise. So that's something that Rachel is potentially should take note of before making any decisions. any business, they got prepared for this scenario. They'll be aware that uh the inevitability of the situation at this point. believe that it's more a case of they'll be trying to mitigate the financial implications as much as possible.

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and Ted, in that letter that Christian reported on last week, there was mention of New York's tax rate of 51%, Pennsylvania at 36%, others that are in the 30s and 40%. Is there something that you're thinking that leadership might be preparing for in a worst case scenario as well? In a worst case scenario, yeah. think obviously, as Christian said, any smart business will plan strategically for any

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potential changes, even the more unlikely ones, you've got to factor that in, especially the publicly listed companies because obviously they've got the shareholder dividends and margins and all sorts to consider. But I think the keyword that you mentioned there is worst case scenario. think something like the New York and Pennsylvania style of things of a very, very high tax raise. I don't think that will happen, but I think we are going to see something. I don't think we'll fully see it to that extent.

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because the government does also, I think, recognize the industry's economic contribution, that they don't want to completely wipe that out. And they also kind of recognize the interconnectedness between betting and sport and the sports sector is again, it's something we've seen the government, the labor government want to try and invest in a lot more as well and see that may continue to make a contribution to the British economy. So I don't think they'll go as far as some of the, some of the tax rates we've seen in the U.S., but we are going to see something.

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I think. um

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It directly led to a 25 % decrease in gross gambling revenue and a tax shortfall of 200 million euros. We need balanced regulations, a stable tax regime, but not more uncertainty. The Chancellor faces many pressures. She needs solutions, but hitting punters with more taxes won't solve anything. So guess from that, we can take that there's going to be lobbying, there's going to be the counter-arguments made in the next few weeks.

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Do feel that there are any other factors that could impact or reset the budget this late in the game as the, you know, I'd imagine the treasury are putting their final, know, dots in the I's and crossing the T's, you know, in the next couple of weeks. Do you think there's anything that anyone can do to reset this budget? Unfortunately for the industry, I'm not sure there is at this point. You said the word pressures and we know that both Stammering Reeds run into significant pressure and feel like they're getting a lot of bad press.

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sort of in recent months, think rightly or wrongly as well for the general public betting and especially online gaming is seen as an extremely profitable industry that many believe isn't taxed as high as it could do, or many believe that there's a lot of room to uh boost taxation. So when Reeves takes the pressure that she's under into account, gambling may be seen as an easy target that will career favor with photos and also

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in theory, provide an economic boost. as we've seen with the Netherlands, that may not be the case. And Ted, where do see the external pressures coming from? Yeah, just sort of to build on what Christian said, that's start of I think Christian's right. think the wheels are kind of in motion um for this to go ahead. um External pressures. mean, labour are obviously that

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People over the past few years in this country are facing a lot of uh economic challenges, huge problems of cost of living. This is something that Labour has been saying that it's wanted to address for a long while. Scrapping the things like the two child benefit cap is something that would predominantly help a lot of working people in this country who are traditionally Labour's supporter base and are also the supporter base that is increasingly moving to the Reform Party. Because I think people feel that

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They've been let down by the conservatives over the decade or so. They were in charge. The people have now turned to labor. The situation isn't really improving at the moment at least. And reform offers that alternative. I think labor are trying to play a bit of a long game with this and think, if we scrap things like the two child benefit limit, we do things that are going to put more money in people's pockets. Because ultimately people vote based on their pocket, don't they? It's like that old quote from the Bill Clinton administration of, it's the economy's stupid. People vote based on...

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how they're financially doing. So I think maybe Labour are hoping that by doing things like this, when the next election does roll around in a couple of years time, the situation will have been improved for ordinary people and it'll be less likely to vote for em the emerging reform party. And if they see raising taxes on gambling as a way to achieve this, I think that's for them, I understand why they see that as quite logical. You see what I mean? em

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So yeah, I don't think there's much more. Just off the top of my head, I don't really know what else, what other lobbying can be done of what the industry is already doing. And maybe just try and soften the blow and make sure that they maintain a good relationship with the government, regardless of these forthcoming tax rises, to make sure that regulation continues going in the right way, to make sure that the industry, despite this new financial burden it's going to get, continues to remain sustainable.

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and can try and build up a better public image m after a couple of years of that being rocked by a couple of different things. absolutely. I think that's a great place to leave it. Thank you very much, Ted and Christian, for your valuable insights and opinions. And thanks to the audience for listening to today's episode of iGaming Daily. We'll leave some links in the description to Ted and Christian's coverage of these storylines.

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and I'm sure that the guys will be keeping right on top of all of the developments from Labour Party Conference if there are any uh gambling related updates. oh Thank you very much again for listening and do join us tomorrow for another episode of iGaming Daily to keep up to date with the latest global gambling news.