Rank Group’s David Williams wrote an Op-Ed for the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC), urging the U.K.’s gambling regulator to hold off on taking actions that will increase costs for casino until it has modernized regulations that already hamper the industry, iGaming Business reported January 2.
The BGC has previously called planned government actions such as lifting the National Living Wage (the equivalent of the U.S. minimum wage) and freezing of casino bands as a “£5 million casino stealth tax raid.”
Williams, who is Rank Group’s director of public affairs, said the sector’s survival depends on delivering modernization proposed in the government’s white paper first.
The reforms include allowing casinos to offer sports betting, expanding electronic payment methods and changing slot machine allocations. That will increase revenues in advance of the changes expected to cost more money.
“That’s the only sequence of events that works,” he wrote in the opinion piece. He added, “It all takes time, and whilst timing is everything, we are not blessed with time on our side. We are playing catch-up with casinos elsewhere in the world, and much of the wider gambling ecosystem. Only when the legislation is delivered can we set about making our casinos more modern and appealing.”
The sector generates £300 million a year in taxes, but it has been struggling under the cost-of-living crisis, such that four casinos closed last year and the sector employs 25 percent fewer than four years ago. In addition, 25 percent of the country’s casinos have closed since 2005.
