Ireland's EU Budget Draft Omits the Online Gambling Levy as Racing Seeks an Exemption

The Irish Presidency's revised negotiating box for the EU's 2028 to 2034 budget lists five new revenue sources, and a levy on online gambling is not among them. Europe's racing bodies, who had asked Dublin days earlier to keep horserace betting out of any such levy, welcomed the omission but warn the idea still has strong support in the European Parliament.

• The Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU circulated its revised negotiating box for the 2028 to 2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) on 10 October, and its list of new own resources does not include a levy on online gambling
• In a letter published on 8 October, the European and Mediterranean Horseracing Federation (EMHF) and the European Trotting Union (UET) asked Minister of State Thomas Byrne and Finance Minister Simon Harris to keep horserace betting out of any such levy
• European Parliament Vice-President Victor Negrescu floated the levy in February at €2bn to €4bn a year; a Commission working paper put a 3% levy at about €1.9bn a year
• The Parliament's lead budget negotiators said the Presidency had "failed to take any of Parliament's proposals into account", and the racing bodies say the threat "has not gone away completely"
• Any new own resource needs unanimity among member states, and Malta, the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) and Poland's four gambling trade bodies have already opposed a gambling levy

The Presidency's Revenue List Has Five New Own Resources, and Gambling Is Not One of Them

Ireland, which holds the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU, circulated its revised negotiating box for the next MFF on Saturday 10 October as Council document 13922/26. It proposes five new own resources: lump-sum contributions from companies with net turnover above €100 million, a national contribution based on tobacco, a charge of €2 per kilogram of non-collected electronic waste, 30% of Emissions Trading System revenues and 90% of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism revenues. All five sit in square brackets, the Council's notation for text not yet agreed. There is no levy on online gambling, digital services or crypto-assets; the box says only that "work will continue" on new own resources.

Member states "remain divided" on the options, according to the Irish government, which puts the package at about €55 billion a year but "subject to continued negotiations". Thomas Byrne, Minister of State for European Affairs and Defence, who chairs the General Affairs Council, told reporters the Parliament's ideas could still be in the mix, RTÉ reported, but that any new resource must command unanimity, deliver substantial funds and be ready by 1 January 2028. It "wasn't clear to us" that the Parliament's proposals met those tests, he said, according to Euronews. EU leaders discuss the text at the European Council this week, and President António Costa wants agreement by the end of 2026.

Racing Wrote to Dublin, Then Welcomed the Result

In their letter, the EMHF and the UET urged Byrne and Simon Harris, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, to oppose including horserace betting in any EU own resource based on online gambling, warning that an extra tax risked increasing illegal betting, cutting revenue for governments and racing, and weakening consumer protection. "Horseracing should not be treated like an online casino or slot product," said Dr Paull Khan, the EMHF's chief executive. Dr Peter Truzla, the UET's president, said legal betting "is what funds horseracing, and with it breeders, trainers, racecourses and rural jobs".

On 11 October the two bodies welcomed the Presidency's "decision not to include an own resource based on online gambling". Khan added: "But this threat has not gone away completely," and called for a product-specific assessment of any extra tax on horserace betting. Their statement judged reinstatement in this round "very unlikely", but said the principle "still has considerable support in the European Parliament". The UET counts 21 participating countries, 461 racecourses and €8 billion in bets, according to its website.

A Parliament Idea the Commission Never Proposed

Victor Negrescu, a Vice-President of the European Parliament, proposed "a European levy on the online gambling and betting industry, applied equally to the already existing national turnover taxes" in a plenary speech on 17 February, putting its yield at €2bn to €4bn a year, SBC News reported. In April the Parliament's interim MFF report, adopted by 370 votes to 201, named an online gambling levy among alternatives if Commission proposals were dropped. The Commission's July 2025 package contained no gambling levy; a later working paper put a 3% levy on net turnover at about €1.9 billion a year, Euronews reported, against €3.9 billion in an estimate the Parliament's services prepared for MEP Danuše Nerudová.

Nerudová, one of the Parliament's own-resources co-rapporteurs, said on 10 October she was "very disappointed that none of Parliament's proposals were taken on board". Negrescu's office told SBC News that all financing options remain on the table. Industry opposition is long standing: Maarten Haijer, then EGBA's secretary general, called the idea "fundamentally unworkable" in February, and Malta, where many online operators are based, is set to oppose it, according to Euronews.

The Omission Is a Draft Position, Not a Decision

The box is a Presidency compromise and every own resource in it is bracketed. What matters is the gatekeeping: a new own resource needs a unanimous Council decision and approval by every member state, while the Parliament's leverage lies in its consent to the MFF regulation, not to the revenue decision. Byrne's tests run against a gambling levy. Malta's opposition fails the first, and the Commission's own paper acknowledged there is no common EU definition of gambling, which makes a 1 January 2028 start hard to see. The Parliament can make its consent conditional on new resources, but it cannot write one into the Council's text.

Racing Asked for a Carve-Out, Not a Veto

The letter did not demand that the levy be dropped, only that horserace betting be excluded. That is the argument British racing used at home, where general betting duty on racing stayed at 15% while other betting taxes rose, SBC News noted. It rests on racing already funding itself from betting: Britain's Horserace Betting Levy Board takes 10% of bookmakers' profits on British racing above £500,000, and Ireland's Budget this month lifted the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund to €102m. But a product carve-out implicitly accepts a levy on the rest of the market. If the idea returns, operators should expect racing to argue for its own exemption rather than alongside them.

The Sums Were Too Small to Carry the Fight

Even the Parliament's €3.9 billion is a fraction of the €55 billion the Presidency's package is meant to raise. Against it, the channelisation risk that racing, EGBA and the Polish associations all describe would land on national treasuries as lost tax if players moved to unlicensed sites. A levy that is modest for Brussels and contested in national capitals is the easiest item in any basket to leave out.

The online gambling levy is absent from the text EU leaders will negotiate from, which is as close to defeat as an undrafted proposal can come. It has not been withdrawn, and racing's choice to seek an exemption rather than a rejection shows the sector expects to argue it again.