UK Online Casinos Still Looking Offshore

With the UK's new online gambling laws, the government hoped that UK online casinos would choose to be located in the UK. The laws offered online casino and poker room operators licensing for meeting the consumer protection standards.

The UK hoped that UK sportsbooks that had moved to low tax countries such as Alderney and Gibraltar would see the new law as an opportunity to return their companies to the UK, but it looks like the hopes were premature.

A number of UK sportsbooks have hired Global Betting and Gaming Consultants (GBGC) to examine the option of moving offshore, disappointing the UK's goal of getting a tax slice of the £5 billion a year industry, which is expected to more than double in the next four years.

With a 15% a year tax on gross profits in the UK, many online sportsbooks can get a much better deal with flat-rate taxes from countries like Antigua. Many of the larger sportsbooks entered into a gentleman's agreement with the government to get the tax levels dropped, and now need to remain in England, but smaller and newer online casinos, which are less focused on the sportsbook aspect of the business, see only advantages to moving offshore.

Britain is now considering new tax rates to attract companies from Gibraltar, but most companies aren't moving. They're established, and they're paying lower taxes.