No news was good news for the gambling industry as Chancellor Rachel Reeves chose not to take the advice of financial think tanks and hike gambling taxes as part of last week’s autumn budget.

On the latest episode of iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, Martyn Elliott, SBC’s Project Director, was joined by Ted Menmuir, SBC’s Content Director, and the Editor of Payment Expert, Ted Orme-Claye, to delve deeper into the details of the UK budget.

On the new budget, Menmuir said: “This budget marks a shift from prior government strategies. It’s moving incentives for economic growth into public investment which I think is Labour’s long-term view of how it wishes to realign and fix the economy.

“Rachel Reeves announced that the economy needs to fill a £40bn black hole. Businesses will face increased taxes and notably hikes to national insurance contributions. This was detailed as the main kind of fiscal tool by the Chancellor to fill the deficit. 

“Some argue that the budget transfers wealth from companies into public services which will divide opinion on Labour’s strategy. Overall, the tax deficit whether placed on business will affect consumers directly or indirectly so the burden will be borne by the electorate. It was a budget of tough measures and I think one that the Labour government did not want to announce but it has to look to fix the UK economy.”

Focusing on the implications from a payments perspective, Orme-Claye noted that there was an “extensive plan for funding into more research”.

He added: “From the payments and fintech side of things, Labour have been very vocal over the past couple of months about wanting to see continued support for certain financial innovations and initiatives.

“There’s been a lot of discourse around Open Banking and artificial intelligence, unsurprisingly, given how much those are dominating a lot of discussion in fintech and payments at the moment.

“This is also a continuation of what the Conservatives were trying to do, particularly under Sunak, who is quite a big fan of the financial services sector. Labour are trying to build on that and put their own sort of spin on it in their own style.”

As mentioned previously, the UK gambling industry breathed a sigh of relief that it escaped a proposed doubling of gambling taxes.

On the industry’s reaction to the news, Menmuir said: “I don’t know how seriously the treasury took these considerations put forward as they would have only raised about £1bn. 

“I think that the industry can just return to focusing on the finalisation or conclusion of the gambling review. The Tory government couldn’t do that so let’s hope that the Labour government can.”

Menmuir did warn, however, that if the budget does not go as planned tax rises could be included in different sectors, including gambling, during Reeves’ next budget.