Upper Tribunal Cuts Jumpman's £13.2m Free Spins Duty Bill to Nil

The Upper Tribunal has ruled that free spins won on a free promotional game fall outside Remote Gaming Duty, reversing the First-tier Tribunal and wiping out the assessment against the Super Group subsidiary. With the duty now at 40%, the ruling reaches well beyond one operator, unless HMRC appeals or Parliament changes the law.

• The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) has reduced HMRC's Remote Gaming Duty assessments of about £13.2 million against Jumpman Gaming to nil, in a decision released on 25 September, [2026] UKUT 00364 (TCC)
• The judges held that free spins won on Jumpman's "Mega Reel" welcome spin, which both tribunals found was a free game, qualify for the exclusion in section 159A(4) and (5) of the Finance Act 2014, overturning the First-tier Tribunal's reading of the words "the gaming"
• Jumpman's owner Super Group had provided £19.6 million ($26.4 million) for the dispute, including interest and penalties, while Evoke put its own potential exposure at £17.6 million had HMRC won
• CMS partner Stephen Hignett says operators should seek repayment of duty, or the withdrawal of assessments, if the decision is not successfully appealed
• HMRC has one month to seek permission to appeal, and the ruling lands with remote gaming duty at 40% since April, a rise that doubled receipts in July

The Tribunal Reverses the First-tier on Free Spins Won From a Free Game

In a decision released on 25 September, allowing Jumpman Gaming's appeal against HMRC, Judge Swami Raghavan and Judge Guy Brannan held that the spins at issue "fall within the statutory exclusion and do not give rise to liability to RGD", and that the assessments, about £13.2 million for accounting periods from 1 July 2018 to 31 December 2022, "fall to be reduced to nil".

Under Jumpman's Welcome Offer, a customer who made a qualifying deposit received a free spin of the Mega Reel, a prize wheel that could award cash, Amazon vouchers or free spins on other Jumpman games. HMRC's case was that the welcome spin was not taxable but the free spins it produced were. Jumpman, which runs about 200 brands and earns almost all its revenue in the United Kingdom, according to Super Group, argued the reverse.

The First-tier Tribunal sided with HMRC in [2025] UKFTT 01117 (TC), released on 16 September 2025. Tribunal Judge Amanda Brown KC and Professor Dr Phebe Mann found that the welcome spin was "a free game", not a paid game played for free, so there was no stake to waive, and that the free spins it produced did not qualify for the exclusion Parliament wrote in 2017.

Why "the Gaming" Decided the Case

The duty is charged on profits, broadly gaming payments less prizes. The Finance (No. 2) Act 2017 added two rules. Section 159(4) treats play under an offer that waives the stake as if the full stake had been paid. Section 159A(4) and (5) switch that off where the freeplay "has been won in the course of the person's participation in the gaming". HMRC argued that "the gaming" meant only gaming itself played under a waived-stake offer, so a freeplay won on a free game stayed taxable at full value.

The Upper Tribunal upheld the First-tier's finding that the welcome spin was a free game, but held that "the gaming" means remote gaming generally. Parliament had named waived-payment gaming elsewhere in the same section and "could readily have done so" here, the judges wrote. HMRC's reading also required "in the course of" to trace a freeplay back through what could be dozens of intervening games, a function "one might ordinarily expect Parliament to express through clearer tracing language". HMRC's 2016 consultation papers, which the First-tier had wrongly excluded, recorded a decision to tax "the first use of freeplays only" but did not address free spins won on a free game, the judges found.

A Provision, a Contingency and a Refund Window

Super Group, which bought a majority stake in Jumpman in September 2022 and the rest on 1 November 2024, disclosed in its 2025 annual report on Form 20-F that HMRC's original £21.5 million assessment was cut to £12.1 million in May 2024, and that it carried a provision of £19.6 million at 31 December 2025, including £7.1 million of interest and penalties. Evoke, the owner of William Hill, said in its 2025 results that if HMRC won "they may seek to raise assessments for under declared RGD", putting its potential exposure at £17.6 million; it made no provision.

Stephen Hignett, a partner at CMS, said HMRC "has recently been assessing operators to RGD in respect of games which are always free to play", according to iGaming Expert. "If the Upper Tribunal's decision is not successfully appealed by HMRC, operators should be seeking to obtain repayment of RGD where relevant and/or have such assessments withdrawn," he said. He told NEXT.io that operators generally have four years to claim, but that the decision should not be read as "applying indiscriminately to every free spin". Bryn Reynolds of Pinsent Masons called the judgment "very surprising", saying it appeared to "defeat the purpose of the 2017 amendments", according to iGaming Expert.

The Ruling Matters More at 40% Than It Did at 21%

The assessment covered years when the duty was 15% and then 21%. Since April, under the Budget changes, every pound of stake value treated as a gaming payment costs 40p. Prize wheels and daily free spins that cost the customer nothing are common tools in British online casino, and on HMRC's reading every free spin they award would be taxed at full stake value when used. On the tribunal's reading it is not. The two disclosures in Super Group's and Evoke's accounts alone add up to more than £30 million for past periods, before any claims by other operators.

HMRC's Better Route May Be Parliament, Not the Court of Appeal

HMRC can ask the Upper Tribunal for permission to appeal within one month, and the Court of Appeal applies a stricter test to second appeals. The decision gives it some material: the judges found the text alone "marginally favours" Jumpman's reading, "although not decisively so", and accepted that HMRC's reading was "linguistically possible". A Finance Bill amendment saying what HMRC thinks the law already says would be quicker and more certain, and the Budget on 28 October offers the occasion. Such a change would most likely apply only from a future date, leaving past periods to the refund claims Hignett describes.

The Tribunal Left the Bigger Question Unanswered

Jumpman lost its first ground, and the judges refused to let it argue, so late, that section 159(4) does not require an actual payment obligation to be waived. The First-tier's line between a free game and a game played for free therefore stands, and operators relying on it will depend on findings of fact about how an offer is presented and booked, a narrower footing than the headline figure suggests.

For Jumpman, a £13.2 million assessment has become nil, and Super Group's provision may yet return to profit. For the rest of the market, the ruling is a refund opportunity that hangs on a one-month appeal window, and the next move belongs to HMRC.