Former prime minister Gordon Brown's calls to hike gambling taxes will 'only hit ordinary punters' claims BGC

The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has slammed a call from former prime minister Gordon Brown for the government to hike gambling taxes, claiming his proposals would "only hit ordinary punters".

Writing in both the Guardian and Daily Mirror, Brown claimed the profits of the gambling industry were undertaxed and, by raising rates, £3 billion could be raised to lift 500,000 children out of poverty.

Basing his proposals on reports by two think tanks, the Social Market Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Brown said that the remote gaming duty rate should be increased to 50 per cent from 21 per cent, while duties on physical gaming machines should also be raised to 50 per cent.

Brown, who as chancellor of the exchequer scrapped betting tax on punters and replaced it with a 15 per cent gross profits tax on bookmakers, also proposed raising the level of general betting duty to 25 per cent from 15 per cent.

Online gambling duties are expected to be dealt with in this year's budgetCredit: Leon Neal (Getty Images)

A Treasury consultation on harmonising online gambling duties closed last month, although the government has said the level at which a single rate should be set was beyond the consultation's scope and would be determined as part of the process leading towards this autumn's budget.

British racing has launched an 'Axe The Racing Tax' campaign, arguing that proposals to tax betting on horseracing at the same rate as online casinos, which would currently mean the rate rising to 21 per cent from 15 per cent, would cost the industry £66 million a year and put 2,752 people at risk of losing their jobs in the first year.

However, in the Daily Mirror Brown claimed the changes he was proposing could be made "without touching" racing, while in the Guardian he wrote that the changes could be made while "returning £100m as additional support to boost the horseracing industry".

"The government can fulfil today’s unmet needs by taxing an undertaxed sector," he added.

Responding to Brown's intervention, a BGC spokesperson, said: "We completely reject the proposals by the IPPR, which Gordon Brown has based his calls for a drastic tax hike on, and which will only hit ordinary punters.

"These proposals are economically reckless, factually misleading and risk driving huge numbers to the growing, unsafe, unregulated gambling black market, which doesn't protect consumers and contributes zero tax."

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been warned she must raise taxes to fill an estimated £50bn black hole in public finances.

The BGC spokesperson added: "Further tax rises, fresh off the back of government reforms which cost the sector over a billion in lost revenue, would do more harm than good – for punters, jobs, growth and public finances."

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