Online casino operator Paddy Power speaks out against 2% betting tax

Our very own Paddy Power is in the Irish casino news again recently, this time objecting to the proposed doubling of betting tax to 2%. Chief Executive Patrick Kennedy was speaking at his annual general meeting in Dublin saying that the levy is used to create prize money for horse and dog racing but approximately 90% of online betting has nothing to do with Irish racing but is mostly other racing, sports and various online casino games. Mr Kennedy also took the opportunity to point out that most of the competition in the online casino market is based overseas in such places as Gibraltar and Malta making any collection of taxes extremely difficult if not impossible and whilst Paddy Power is willing to pay the current 1%, an increase to 2% would not be sustainable. Mr Kennedy went on to say ‘‘if we face a substantial tax, my board would – and should – turn around and say: at what stage does it no longer make sense to be in Ireland?”. ‘‘We have to think about how we structure ourselves globally. My strong desire is that we structure as much as possible in Ireland, but I’d like to do that without someone coming after me at every turn.” Paddy Power is in the process of preparing a move to new offices and creating further employment in the country but it seems that if the online casino operations moved to somewhere like Gibraltar this could be knocked on the head. Despite these rumours, Paddy Power did announce in the Irish casino news that group revenue increased 21% whist online revenue was up by 33% indicating that the online casino and betting business is still thriving. In an unrelated Irish news article it appears that the bookmaker and online casino operator is so convinced that Vettel has an insurmountable lead in the F1 drivers championship that it has paid out already on the result..