Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in pursuant to Answer of 29 January 2019 to Question 210669 on Football Pools: Excise Duties, what assessment he has made of the level of risk that bookmakers will switch their fixed odds bets to pools to avoid paying General Betting Duty in the event that Pools Betting Duty was to be reduced to 10 per cent.

No assessment of the Exchequer impact of reducing the rate of Pool Betting Duty to 10% has been made.

However due to the ease of changing between pools betting and regular betting the Government considers it would put a significant portion of the General Betting Duty receipts at risk – which totalled £572m in 2017-18.

A list of current and future gambling duty rates can be found in Annex A of the Government’s Budget 2018 document.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/754766/Annex_A_rates_and_allowances.pdf