Casinos Will Have to Pay Up: The EU Plans to Introduce a Unified Tax on Online Gambling

Casinos Will Have to Pay Up: The EU Plans to Introduce a Unified Tax on Online Gambling

The Vice-President of the European Parliament, Victor Negrescu, has put forward a high-profile initiative—to impose a unified tax levy on online casino operators and bookmakers across the entire European Union. The proposal was voiced amid large-scale discussions on reforming the EU budget, as officials are actively searching for new and stable sources of funding for common EU programs.

Analysts have already estimated the potential payoff. If a relatively moderate rate is approved, the EU’s combined treasury could receive an additional €2–4 billion annually. In the context of long-term budget planning, this figure could grow to an impressive €28 billion. Where do they plan to allocate this money? Priorities include educational initiatives, professional retraining programs, as well as socially significant projects, combating gambling addiction and supporting citizens’ mental health. An important nuance: this levy will not replace local taxes in member states. The new mechanism will function as an additional layer on top of existing national tax systems.

At present, the EU gambling market is highly fragmented. Each country independently decides how much to charge the gambling industry: in some jurisdictions, the rate barely exceeds a couple of percent, while in others it surpasses a harsh 40%. Naturally, gambling companies tend to register en masse in countries with a more favorable tax climate.

The new pan-European levy is intended to at least partially level the playing field for all operators and eliminate this imbalance. In addition, the unified tax is expected to serve as a kind of legality filter at the EU-wide level, significantly complicating operations for shadow offshore platforms and making it easier to combat them.

For now, officials are not naming specific dates for when the bill will be published and move into the implementation stage, the details of the initiative are still under discussion.