World Cup football and new online gambling tax an advertising windfall

The forthcoming advent of World Cup football and the UK’s new secondary licensing and taxation legislation are fuelling a growing boom in advertising spend by betting companies anxious to position themselves to best advantage in the British gambling market, an article in This Is Money over the weekend claimed.

This year’s World Cup, which takes place every four years, is scheduled for Brazil, and is expected to unleash a tsunami of betting across the world which bookkeepers are keen to handle, whilst the new regulatory restrictions on remote gambling mean that even companies based in foreign tax havens will have to be licensed and taxed by the UK if they have British customers (see previous reports).

“Companies that moved abroad to pay zero or 1 percent tax will have to fork out 15 percent tax on gross profits from December 1, which will cost the industry GBP 300 million a year,” This Is Money reports.

Industry insiders told the publication that the advertising frenzy has been particularly lucrative for broadcasters which transmit sports programmes, such as ITV, BT and Sky.

“Spending on advertising by gambling companies has climbed to an all-time high. Excluding the National Lottery, advertising by these firms is now thought to be worth about GBP 150 million a year,” the publication notes, commenting that competition is particularly fierce among gambling firms eager to secure the best ad spots during football matches and horse-racing.

Analyst Paul Leyland said in an interview with This Is Money that the estimated total marketing spend on gambling in the UK was now running at around GBP 750 million, and was likely to increase significantly around the World Cup and ahead of the tax changes envisioned by the government for online gambling companies.

When the World Cup was held in South Africa four years ago, ITV saw an 18 percent increase in revenue in the second half of the year.