Bitcoin Forum

Taxes make a huge impact on betting earnings in certain countries while other are relatively free of that burden. Many central European countries such as Germany, France, Luxembourg, Denmark, etc... charge directly to the casinos and other charge to the earnings. For example Denmark will get nearly 70% of the Casino earnings.

https://www.taxback.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-gambling-tax-rates-around-the-world (https://www.taxback.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-gambling-tax-rates-around-the-world)

As you can read, Germany is the most astringent jurisdiction, with 90% of casino earning being paid as tax! The message cannot be more clear: if you want money, go work! You could argue that Italy - tax free -  is also sending a message: go gamble, there is not much more to do  ;D On-line is also different per country and some are tax-free if it is online and other make no difference.

I researched this because I hear that a professional poker player from Spain was about to move to Andorra, which is something that may people do when they earn big.

Is there even a bookie still operating in Germany? hehe. Sports betting is probably popular with Bundesliga and other top sports there but I do not know how they will survive with that 90% tax.

I hope he settles any tax due in Spain so he won't be bothered by evasion cases before moving to another country.

that's true? so how do casino owners keep profits if they have to pay this high tax? how will casino owners be able to pay workers wages or is this tax amount only applied to online casinos? because a real world casino needs to pay water bill, electricity bill and workers wages and also needs to have money to maintain the infrastructure, if the real world casino pays 90% in taxes they go bankrupt in the same month

Even 50% tax from earning isn't acceptable for me, how about 70%, 90%, ohh...that it looks like that we got hack by these people. The government is milking them too much, it wasn't fair. I don't think their reason is to stop gambling as they allow it in the first place. Or they just wanted that gambler to never think about winning or they have to pay for it. And this urges them to move out from their beloved country for that sake.

How I wish they will think it and don't let their people, gamblers to suffer such a thing, in fact, that was their money anyway.

Perhaps this casino's are still making profits from online gamblers and maybe there are still a lot of gambling addicts in Germany that's why this casinos continue to exist and willing to pay that tax because they still make huge profits?

Because business wise it's not wise to continue if you are going to suffer huge losses in the beginning. But they are smart, they know that there are individuals they can still trap and they are not going to go bankrupt the soonest.

Government doesn't directly tell those business owners that gambling should be banned but instead they do tend to choke them into their necks on imposing 70-90% taxation? How the hell they would survive on that? I don't know if there are gambling business into those countries do still operational
as of this moment despite of those high taxes.

Actions like moving into other country or places just because of that particular reason isn't something new on where there are people
who are really eager on doing that.

It's a fine linebut yeah taxes kill the worth of gbling a lot.  Tax too much and people will just skirt the system, there best bet is to keep taxes low on gambling if they want to keep everything legit.

Lol, 90% tax. That's the opposite in some countries I guess as they'll only get a small percentage of the total income while Germany charges 90%, that only means one thing, it's an indirect way to impose a gambling ban, operators will not survive with that kind of tax rate.

I've said it once and I'll say it again...
I'm in favor of high rates for everything that is bad for the physical, mental and financial health of the population.
I think it's that fair that governments impose high rates as long as these taxes are duly reverted to the population.
But look at other countries that prefer to simply ban gambling altogether, there nobody can have fun and the government doesn't collect a lot of money from taxes, that's cruel.

What is even more sad is that in many countries gambling taxes are imposed not on the winnings but on the bets themselves. The article mentions Kenya and Ireland as examples.

This is like double house edge. In a casino, the house itself has an advantage either in the game or in the payout if you prefer the odds to be 50:50. But even before winning, your bet is already reduced to the taxes. That sounds a little too much to me.

Isn't fair not to tax the loser and tax only the winner?

Destination Spain. I use to think of Puerto Rico which Logan even considered his choice.


They are only choking the businesses and gambling companies if they are not making money out of it. Right now they are even making more regulations to Robinhood options because they are also not making money out of it.

Checking out the biggest Lottery where citizens spend thousands every year of it not knowing thier chances of winning but because the government is making money out of it, they just let it be.

Most probably I think it's a must to impose taxes on gambling businesses but it would be fair enough if taxing only the winner and not the loser but as stated in the article like there are many countries like Ireland and Kenya that impose taxes on the bookies, which on other hand it is what they have in their laws and gambler must follow this. But they are already collecting money from a gambler even without assurance of winning and for that case they are collecting a little much from the gambler, and the gambler will stay loser as it seems even if they win.

Poor casinos lmao. Why would they even bother registering for one when it basically looks like they're earning money for someone else. I first thought they were taxing the player's winning but it doesn't seem to be like that, from the article itself it says that Germany is one of the countries that has no taxes on winnings earned from gambling. It's like a haven for players but hell for casino owners.


High rates is fine and all but borderline unfair is not. It pretty much kills the business after all. I agree with having an equilibrium of casinos being allowed and them being taxed, but if it was like this, they'd just ultimately leave or do an illegal one or a private one (which has its own taxation rules according to the article).

Congratulations! You have discovered that regulations and taxes kill business!

That's why crypto casinos are so attractive. Most of them either don't even have a license or if they do it's from some tax haven where they pay hardly any taxes, so they can give better odds to customers. By giving better odds, even for casino games, people usually have a better return in the short term (and lose less in the long term).

Regarding poker specifically, what happened about ten years ago is that apart from regulations and taxes in most European countries, the market was fragmented. Previously a poker player would enter pokerstars (to give an example) and play against players from all over the world. From about 2012 onwards a poker player from France could only play against players from France. So there was a migration of poker players who earned the most money from countries with strict regulations and high taxes to countries that still allowed to play with the rest of the world and with low taxes.

Some countries like Germany are built on their national culture that work is primary to them,Germans are well known for their really good products like Mercedes-Benz and other cars but not only car industries but they excel in many others.They see gambling as a menace to this culture and they will do the maximum in their power to limit gambling as much as possible.Other countries are less stringent when it comes to gambling,they just tax it to a normal amount of money which they see as a good big source of income to their government.

In the end this boils down to different point of views,however countries like Germany compared to others in Europe are far ahead and maybe this says a lot as why they limit the gambling to the maximum extent possible.They are the biggest economy of Europe as of right now.

What about gambling casino sponsorship in Germany? I don't think the extra income is based on the results of gamblers losing their money, in Germany itself big stakes are something not to be missed. just 10% is still not enough while the 9-% casino tax is a huge tax action. Given the rules for setting up a casino, it's better to accept the policy than nothing. So Germany has the opportunity to earn more with crypto casinos providing Bitcoin, Ethereum as the most mandatory coin to be included as a crypto that should not be missed. The rest they can add any crypto according to the taste of the gamblers. That way 10% of crypto bets will pay off more when facing the bull market.

Maybe that's the reason most of the offline casino business owners are making arrangements for online gambling access. If the online gambling business is registered on some other country, then it'll bring good revenue.

Many countries have policies and law against gambling, however there is always ways through which people get access to it. In my country gambling have got restrictions, but platforms registered on other countries promote their services on our regional broadcast. In some State lottery is allowed and for that the government takes around 40% as tax from the winner.

I think we are just looking at the single side. I don't have any idea but try to research how much gambling operators in those countries profit overall since their inception prior to the new tax rate. In Europe, gambling is the most overwhelmed industries and even with how much tax is applied to those, they are still bagging some big profits in return as no casinos are losing in that line of business.

Just come to think of it, if those taxes and regulations are killing the odds, why there are still new operators joining the game and willing to spend big on the operations? Because the bottom line is, it's profitable!

It seems the governments want to limit the casino revenue by implementing big taxes from them. It could make the medium and big casinos move their business to another country that does not have to pay high taxes. I wonder how those casinos can survive while paying the taxes. Maybe we will see many underground casinos start running because some casinos owners do not want to pay high taxes. And that is the only thing that the casino's owner can do besides moving to the other places that do not have high taxes.

There's no such thing as the government wanting to limit casino revenues even in any country. It's just that gambling seems to be the most profitable industry they can look at to contribute more to the government's funding now that we are in the post-pandemic period.

I don't see anything wrong with that as long as there's a good reason to implement it like for example, gambling is really kicking up in these countries. High tax will also limit those who are trying to establish unlicensed gambling operations. There's also a good advantage of implementing high tax but it should be used properly by the government or else, anything is useless.

Normally, we might discuss whether revenues are better handled by free markets or governments. That would be a typical go to framework for discussing topics like taxes. It seems those social norms have largely been dispensed with. The discussion framework that appears most acceptable today, is one resembling social darwinism. Where people do what they think they can get away with, and hopefully its survival of the fittest which will hopefully benefit human evolution and society. If states want to tax casinos at 90% profits, its ok. The fittest will survive. While the unfittest may not be so fortunate. And I guess, that means everyone will be better off that way?

I don't know how else to rationalize the mentality most have, where they appear to believe 90% taxes are acceptable enough to become normalized. Someone please explain it to me, if you can.

The tax hem in Germany is quite large, around 90%. Quite burdensome and also not very profitable for the casino there. Quite an unfair policy for the sector in the gambling business. Get it later 90% can be reduced, considering the remaining 10% means dividing the results to the casino manager will be very small. I just need to know how much is the income of casinos in Germany in 1 year? if it's not worth it, maybe the casinos located in Germany will eventually go bankrupt.

This post is misleading. The moment I read it, I immediately did research to check if the information you provided are true. Apparently, it is not accurate. In Germany, the tax obligations a casino has to pay to the government for every online poker and casino game is 19%. Sports betting has a higher tax rate which is 24%, and lottery games are subjected to the stake made which is 20%. This is pretty much a decent tax if I must say because this is the usual tax of those countries that have gambling as a legal activity. In Italy, it isn't really tax-free. The government of Italy taxes the casinos for 20% for their games of skill and 22% for sports betting. The two countries mentioned, Germany and Italy, have a usual taxation rate. Hence, the casino operators will still make a profit. Meanwhile, in Denmark, it is really true that the tax is high but not as high as 70%. The gambling tax in Denmark is around 41% for gaming machines and 45% for land-based casinos. Back then, they have only 20% tax obligations but their government decided to raise the tax to the operators by 40% to both. Hence, they are paying double the tax now compared to before.

Sources:

 Denmark Gambling Tax  (https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/8245/danish-government-will-increase-online-gambling-tax-in-2021#:~:text=The%20Danish%20Government%20has%20revealed,in%20its%202020%20Finance%20Act.&text=Danish%20land%2Dbased%20casinos%20are,machines%20are%20taxed%20at%2041%25.)

 Italy Gambling Tax (https://content.next.westlaw.com/4-636-9099?__lrTS=20200806135546603&transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true#:~:text=The%20tax%20rate%20is%2020,is%2022%25%20for%20sports%20betting.)

 Germany Gambling Tax  (https://www.taylorwessing.com/download/article_gambling_germany.html#:~:text=Tax,German%20and%20foreign%20gambling%20operators.&text=Sports%20bets%20are%20taxed%20at,at%2020%25%20of%20the%20stake.)

I think you need to take into consideration at what point the tax is taken. I don't understand why they have the UK listed as a 50% gambling tax when all winnings from gambling are tax free, it makes me wonder how accurate the rest of the article really is - especially when I'd expect the tax rate to also be much higher in the US (from anecdotal evidence I've seen in the past). This seems to mix up personal tax rates without any regard for specific exclusions and categorizations in law. Be careful with how much you trust this data, but some of it might be true and why not? Gambling is a very unproductive pursuit for society and doesn't create anything of value - it just feeds the profits of a few corporations and that's where it should really get taxed heaviest.

Gambling tax literally doesn't make sense to me.

You're taxing a zero or often negative sum game in which people enter with the expectation of losing. Why in the world would anyone want to tax gambling earnings in that regard?

Apart from just sheer greed, I really can't think of another reason. And you're right, this distorts the odds substantially.

Gambling taxes are just absurd. Most of the time, people lose money on gambling, and the government still makes money anyways. When gamblers make money, they are required to give a part of their winnings to the government, and they can't say no otherwise they will be subject to pay more for not complying. Then again, if taxes go towards something useful, and can be of service to the masses, then there's no real reason to object taxation.

Taxation has a good concept its just that corrupt politicians are ruining its purpose that’s why many are avoiding it at all cost and same thing with gambling. You earn this money out of luck and paying small tax for me is fine but if its too big that can cover all my winnings, I guess its not right. Some gamblers want to live on a tax free nation and they can do this as long as they have the money, this is not new anyway people love to gamble but don’t want to pay any taxes.

^ Sounds funny to me when gamblers make money we are entitled to share our earnings to the government and also casino give their taxes to the government, that is why the government cannot be easy to vanish these gambling businesses because they know it gives a lot of benefits to them. Taxes and regulations which make our country survive and be developed so I think if you have contributed to the development of your country that is not a problem but there is something wrong if you pay too much high taxes.

Tax is normal as it's the lifeblood of the government, however, too much tax is not gonna make the business survive, hence it will not help progress the gambling industry in a certain country. Honestly, I have no idea that some countries charge huge taxes on the gambling business, that is unreasonable IMO and I think there's no way a gambling site would be able to survive since they also have big operational expenses.

When taxes are unreasonable, regulation is expected to be the same, so it will not only kill the odds, it will kill the business on its entirety.

The main reason to raise taxes up to 80-90 % of income is because gambling is business with low risk and low investments. So, if you invest 1 million of dollars in casino you will get your investment back very fast and after that - only profits. So with low taxes in such countries like Germany, people would invest only in gambling rather than something useful  ;D


Typical story.