Regulatory
Machine Games Duty
Definition
The British tax on the net takings of gaming machines, charged at rates that vary with the maximum stake and prize a machine offers.
Why it matters
Machine Games Duty falls on physical estates rather than online operators, which makes it a different political proposition from online taxation. Betting shops, adult gaming centres, bingo halls and pubs carry fixed property and staff costs that online operators do not, so a rate increase lands on the part of the industry least able to absorb it and most visible on the high street.
That visibility cuts both ways in policy debate. Campaigners point to machine gaming as the product most associated with harm in deprived areas, and to the density of premises there as evidence of targeting. Operators point to shop closures and job losses as the direct consequence of increases, and to the fact that a closed shop moves activity online rather than ending it.
Proposals to raise the duty are recurrent, and are frequently attached to funding a specific unrelated policy, which changes the debate from gambling policy to fiscal arithmetic.
The bottom line
Machine Games Duty is the tax that decides how many betting shops stay open. Raising it is a decision about the high street as much as about gambling.