New Online Gambling Tax in Ireland

The Irish government has announced an impending change to online gambling legislation. Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney is bringing forward legislation that will, for the first time in Irish history, impose a tax on online gambling.

According to the new proposal all bookmakers will have to pay a tax on any online bet they take from Isrish-based punters. The tax imposed will be set at 1 per cent of all online gambling transactions of every single Irish online gambler.

The reason behind the new tax laws is to reduce to burden that the Irish taxpayers are experiencing with regards to funding the sport of horse racing in Ireland. The Irish love their horse-racing and Ireland prides itself on having some of the greatest racecourses in the world. Unfortunately, the entire Irish gambling industry is subsidized by the Irish taxpayers to the cost of €56million per year. This is due to steadily declining revenues of traditional High Street betting shops, while online and telephone betting is on the rise. The Horse Racing industry currently claims that the bookmakers need to fully fund the Horse Racing industry as they are the main benefactors from this industry.

The new tax revenues will be allocated to help fund the racing industry so that the €56million used to fund the racing industry can be allocated to other ventures. The new legislation will affect online sports books that up until now were not paying any tax on their gambling revenues.

Furthermore, Mr. Coveney commissioned a report to examine the procedures in the Irish horse racing industry following complaints from big bookmakers such as Ladbrokes and Paddy Power. These bookmakers were also part of the process that led the Ministry of Agriculture to initiate the bring forward the new tax regime.