UK Gambling Tax 2026: £3.83bn in Duty and the 40% Remote Gaming Duty

UK gambling tax raised a record £3,830.6m in the 2025-26 financial year, according to HMRC’s betting and gaming statistics. That is 5.9% more than in 2024-25. Remote Gaming Duty, charged on online casino and slots profits, brought in £1,321.0m and rose to 40% from 1 April 2026.

How gambling is taxed in the UK

Gambling in the UK is taxed at the operator level, not the player level. Bookmakers, casinos, lottery promoters and machine operators pay duties on their profits or takings, and HMRC collects them. Remote Gaming Duty is charged on profits from UK customers wherever an operator is based, so the rules also reach casinos based outside the UK.

Duty rates are set by the Chancellor at the Budget, with HM Treasury responsible for tax policy, and written into law through Finance Acts. The rates below are those listed by HMRC for 2026-27.

Bingo Duty used to be a seventh duty. It was abolished from 1 April 2026, so it no longer appears in HMRC’s rates list.

How much each gambling duty raises

Gambling tax receipts HMRC publishes each month show which duties matter most. Remote Gaming Duty has been the largest single duty since 2023-24, when it raised £1,027.6m against £934.1m from Lottery Duty, and the gap has widened since. The receipts reflect operators that file UK duty returns, so play at offshore casino sites that do not file them is not visible here.

Remote Gaming Duty alone made up 34.5% of all gambling duty receipts, and grew 13.6% in a year from £1,162.5m. Lottery Duty rose 5.2% to £980.1m and Machine Games Duty also rose 5.2% to £641.0m.

General Betting Duty was the exception, falling 4.1% from £713.9m to £684.5m. Betting receipts depend on sporting results as well as stakes, so they move more from year to year. For the size of each sector behind these receipts, see our UK gambling industry statistics.

How each UK gambling tax is calculated

Each UK gambling tax uses a different base. Most are charged on profits after prizes, but Lottery Duty is charged on ticket sales.

1. Remote Gaming Duty: 40% of remote gaming profits, meaning stakes minus prizes, for operators with UK customers.
2. General Betting Duty: 15% of net stake receipts on fixed-odds and totalisator bets, 3% on financial spread bets and 10% on other spread bets.
3. Machine Games Duty: 5% of net takings for low-stake machines with a maximum cost of play of 20p and a top cash prize of £10, 20% for other machines where play costs up to £5, and 25% where it can cost more.
4. Gaming Duty: banded on a casino’s gross gaming yield, from 15% on the first £2,686,000 up to 50% on the remainder above the top band.
5. Lottery Duty: 12% of the price of each ticket or chance.

The Gaming Duty bands are £2,686,000 at 15%, the next £1,852,000 at 20%, the next £3,243,000 at 30% and the next £6,845,000 at 40%. Smaller casinos therefore pay a lower average rate than the largest ones.

Gambling tax receipts over 40 years

HMRC’s series starts in 1986-87, when betting and gaming duties raised £779.6m. Receipts have since grown about 4.9 times in cash terms, though the figures are not adjusted for inflation.

The mix has changed completely. In 1986-87 betting duties dominated; Lottery Duty arrived with the National Lottery in the mid-1990s, and Remote Gaming Duty only began in 2015-16, raising £336.3m in its first year.

Since then Remote Gaming Duty has grown about 3.9 times. Total receipts dipped to £2,836.8m in 2020-21, when betting shops, casinos and arcades were closed during the COVID-19 lockdowns, before recovering to new records. The receipts rest on a broad base of players, and our guide to how many people gamble in the UK has the participation figures.

• 1986-87: £779.6m in total gambling duties.
• 2015-16: £2,666.4m, the first year with Remote Gaming Duty.
• 2019-20: £3,019.4m, the first year above £3bn.
• 2025-26: £3,830.6m, a record.

The 40% Remote Gaming Duty

Remote Gaming Duty was 15% when it was introduced, rose to 21% from 1 April 2019 and to 40% on or after 1 April 2026. The change was announced in the November 2025 Budget and enacted in the Finance Act 2026. Online slots generate most of the profits it is charged on, as our online slots statistics UK guide shows.

Announcing it, the Chancellor said “Remote gaming is associated with the highest levels of harm, and so I am increasing remote gaming duty from 21% to 40%”, as quoted in the evoke plc annual report. The same Finance Act creates a 25% rate of General Betting Duty on remote bets from 1 April 2027, with bets on UK horse racing excluded.

The higher rate applies to accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2026, so the first quarterly payments at 40% were due in the summer. Early receipts show the effect. Operators pay Remote Gaming Duty quarterly, and July 2026 brought in a provisional £589.7m, more than double the £283.0m in July 2025, which is consistent with the first quarter charged at 40%.

Do players pay tax on gambling winnings?

No. In the UK, gambling winnings are not subject to income tax or capital gains tax, because the duty is charged on the operator instead.

HMRC’s Business Income Manual explains that betting is not treated as a trade, so a punter is not taxed on betting profits. Section 51 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 separately exempts winnings from betting, lotteries and games with prizes from capital gains tax.

Interest or income earned later on winnings can be taxable in the normal way. Gambling losses also cannot be offset against other income.

The rules differ in some other countries, where large wins can be taxed. For UK residents gambling with UK-licensed operators, the duty paid by the operator is the only gambling tax in the chain, which is one reason why rate rises are felt by operators first. Winnings stay tax-free for UK residents even from European online casinos licensed abroad, because the exemption depends on the type of income rather than the operator.

What the tax rises mean for operators

Large listed operators have set out the impact in their annual reports. evoke, which owns William Hill, said the Treasury overrode the department responsible for gambling policy and warned that the rise would push players towards unlicensed sites.

The unlicensed sites evoke referred to include casinos outside GamStop, which hold no Gambling Commission licence and so sit outside both the regulator’s statistics and its player protections.

Entain, owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, guided in November 2025 that it expected to mitigate around 25% of the annualised incremental impact of higher Remote Gaming Duty and General Betting Duty. Playtech also flagged the 40% rate and the new 25% betting duty in its 2025 report.

Behind these sums are millions of players, and our look at gambling in Scotland shows how one nation’s habits compare with the rest of Britain.

FAQ: UK gambling tax

Short answers based on HMRC data and guidance.