Don’t pull the rug from below a recovering…

After years of ready, Britain’s casinos had been lastly handed a good shot at survival. This summer season, the Government’s long-overdue modernisation bundle recognised what we within the sector have identified for many years – that casinos are very important anchors of Britain’s night-time financial system, main employers, and highly effective engines of native progress.

It was a second of optimism for a sector that has been by greater than its justifiable share of challenges. The reforms launched by the DCMS – together with extra proportionate gaming machine allocations and the flexibility to supply sports activities betting – weren’t particular favours. They had been smart, evidence-based updates to guidelines written for a special period.

As DCMS Minister Stephanie Peacock put it, these modifications had been designed to “unlock additional investment up and down the country” and “put the casino sector back on a stable footing.” Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross went additional, praising the sector’s contribution to jobs, tax revenues and the night-time financial system, and predicting a Gross Gambling Yield enhance of as much as £58 million.

Those reforms have already begun to ship. Within weeks, operators introduced over £300 million in new funding. Tangible regeneration tasks in communities throughout the UK.

At The Hippodrome, we’ve invested round £65 million in whole since opening in 2012 – £50 million at launch, adopted by continued reinvestment and growth, together with new gaming areas, bars, leisure, and most lately, a £1.5 million world-class sportsbook within the coronary heart of London’s West End. Every penny has been privately funded and regionally rooted, serving to maintain over 820 jobs and attracting over 1.4 million guests annually.

Rank Group dedicated £60 million a 12 months for 2 years to modernise venues. Genting introduced a £40 million new on line casino at London’s Trocadero and a £10 million refurbishment in Southend. Grosvenor is reworking the enduring Victoria Casino with a £15 million improve. Bally’s has invested £3.7 million in Newcastle, securing 170 jobs.

These investments don’t simply help casinos. They maintain jobs in building, hospitality, know-how and leisure, whereas respiration life into city centres and excessive streets. Casinos are more and more multi-dimensional locations. They mix gaming with eating places, bars, stay music and efficiency. We are on the forefront of the shift in direction of 24-hour, mixed-use metropolis centres that appeal to guests and drive progress.

That’s why discuss of a possible rise in Machine Games Duty (MGD) on this 12 months’s Budget is so deeply alarming. Any enhance from the present 20 per cent fee would reverse the advantages of the Government’s personal reforms earlier than they’ve even had the prospect to take root.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a sector crying wolf. Analysis by the Betting and Gaming Council exhibits {that a} rise to 25 per cent would make many of those funding tasks financially unviable. Around 40 casinos would shut, costing 3,500 jobs. That equates to a 3rd of your complete UK on line casino workforce.

As I’ve stated in our submission to the Treasury: “An increase in MGD would fundamentally undermine the sustainable footing the new reforms have created. It would reverse progress, lead to closures, and put thousands of skilled jobs at risk.”

Casinos are solely simply starting to recuperate from the pandemic and years of financial stress. Our revenues are nonetheless 22 per cent under pre-Covid ranges, equal to a 43 per cent fall in actual phrases. Rising prices from vitality to wages and employer National Insurance contributions proceed to squeeze margins. The Government’s reforms gave us a framework to rebuild sustainably. A tax hike now would tear that away.

Casinos contribute tons of of hundreds of thousands in tax revenues annually and help 11,000 extremely expert jobs throughout the nation. Many of those roles are full-time, secure, and include coaching and profession development. The sort of employment Britain’s cities and cities want extra of.

As BGC CEO Grainne Hurst has rightly warned: “Raising MGD would not raise revenue, it would destroy it, by forcing viable casinos to close.” She’s proper. Every on line casino that shuts its doorways means misplaced tax receipts, misplaced employment, and misplaced native regeneration.

That influence wouldn’t cease at our doorways. Casinos sit on the coronary heart of the broader night-time financial system, supporting surrounding companies from accommodations and bars to taxis and theatres. As Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, has stated: “Strategic funding in leisure, hospitality, eating places, bars and stay exhibits is shaping casinos into future-proof locations that may maintain jobs, energise excessive streets, and underpin a vibrant 24-hour financial system”.

That’s the longer term we ought to be constructing – dynamic, all-hours locations that mix gaming with meals, music, tradition and creativity. Casinos may change into energetic companions in DCMS’s Creative Plan, serving to to revitalise city centres and diversify Britain’s cultural provide. But that imaginative and prescient is dependent upon monetary headroom. Push up taxes now, and that chance vanishes.

The Chancellor faces a easy alternative on this Budget. She can consolidate the advantages of reform, encourage non-public funding, and help a sector able to create jobs and drive progress. Or she will be able to undo her colleagues’ good work, deter funding, and danger pushing the business backwards.

The Government’s modernisation reforms gave our sector stability and hope. We took them at their phrase and dedicated to investing in Britain’s financial restoration. All we ask now’s consistency and to be allowed to ship on these commitments.

The present 20 per cent fee of Machine Games Duty strikes the correct steadiness between a good contribution to the Treasury and the flexibility to reinvest in folks, locations and innovation. Raising it will be an act of self-sabotage, chopping off a rising supply of tax income simply because it begins to flourish.

Casinos are proud to be a part of Britain’s leisure and tourism panorama. We are prepared to take a position, to modernise, and to help native economies throughout the UK. But we are able to solely do this if the goalposts keep nonetheless.

So my message to the Chancellor is evident: resist any temptation to boost Machine Games Duty. Protect jobs, shield funding, and shield progress.