UK Online Bingo Sites hit by The Budget

UK-licensed online bingo sites will be required to pay tax on their ‘free bet’ offers starting next year.

This will have a huge impact on the industry as we currently know it and could potentially mean an end to the lucrative sign up bonuses, deposit bonuses and chat game bonuses.

The requirement will come into effect from August 1,2017 and would mean operators will be required to pay 15% remote gaming duty on all free or discounted online bets. This would include all bingo bonuses currently offered by bingo sites.

So far online bingo and casino free bet offers were excluded from the 15% point-of-consumption tax on online gambling revenue that was introduced in the UK in 2014.

Even though full details of the plan have yet to be revealed, the August 2017 implementation of the new tax will at least allow operators to tweak their free bet offers so as to minimise their financial hit.