Britain’s largest bookmakers have been given more than £600million in tax rebates on addictive gaming machines.
The taxman has been forced to reimburse bookmakers and casinos, who won a legal battle on VAT paid on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs).
New documents show Betfred, owned by billionaire brothers Fred and Peter Done, has been paid £97.7million. William Hill confirmed it has been paid £208.3million.
A sign of the times: The taxman has been forced to reimburse bookmakers and casinos, who won a legal battle on VAT paid on fixed-odds betting terminals
Entain, which runs about 3,000 Ladbrokes and Coral betting shops, has received £217.5million and Flutter, the owner of Paddy Power, has been paid £15.9million. Rank, the owner of Mecca Bingo and Grosvenor Casinos, estimates its claim is about £80million.
Rank and the Done brothers jointly launched a tax tribunal against Revenue & Customs, saying they had been charged VAT on FOBTs in the years to 2013 even though FOBTs were similar to roulette wheels, which are exempt from VAT. A judge finally ruled in their favour in April last year.
The Revenue’s decision not to appeal paved the way for William Hill and Entain to make similar claims.
Fixed-odds betting terminals once made up the bulk of bookmakers’ profits. But their addictive nature saw them dubbed the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling and in 2018 the Government curbed profits by reducing the maximum stake on each spin from £100 to £2.
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