Just two days after the budget bookmakers are already being very candid about how they intend to mitigate the increased tax burden dealt by Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget, and horse racing still stands to lose out as a result.

From April 2026, Remote Gaming Duty (RGD) on online gaming will go up from 21% to 40%, hitting online sportsbooks and casinos. General Betting Duty (GBD) will go up from 15% to 25% from March 2027 with some notable exceptions.

One of these exceptions is horse racing, alongside self-service and over the counter in-person bets at betting shops. This has been celebrated by the sport which, led by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), conducted an extensive lobbying campaign against tax raises.

Far from the final hurdle

However, stakeholders still expect horse racing to be hit in some way, with bookmaker marketing budgets the most obvious example. Go to any racetrack in any corner of the UK, and you’ll see sponsorship and branding for a huge number of brands, both retail and online, large and small – William Hill, Betfred, bet365, BetVictor, and BetGoodwin etc.

“I think it’s worse than I could imagine – It’s an absolute disaster, and it really highlights, to me, and disappoints me, that racing and bookmakers couldn’t have shared the same battle,” said Julian Head, CEO of BetGoodwin, on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast this week.

As mentioned above, horse racing undertook its own campaign over the past six months, lobbying against an increase in taxes with the #AxeTheRacingTax initiative. Although betting and racing have traditionally been political allies, they found themselves drifting apart during this period.

Racing stakeholders often pointed to how betting on its sport is comparatively much lower risk than casino gaming, particularly slots. To be fair to the sport, this is backed up by studies and data, but when it came to political campaigns it did drive a wedge between racing and betting.

Tensions were exacerbated when the BHA called a strike on 10 September, with racing meetings across the country called off while a large protest against tax raises was organised at Westminster. The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) was particularly critical of this.

“I think it was very short sighted of the racing bodies to want to go alone,” Head told Nick Luck, referencing the #AxeTheRacingTax campaign. “We’re all in together at the moment, horse racing is a marginal product with astronomical fees on media rights that makes it barely workable as it is now.

“I don’t know how the rest of the industry feels, but I feel very disappointed with horse racing. I’ve already spoken to or sent an email to my contacts at Fontwell, where I do extensive sponsorship, and said I won’t be renewing for next season. A similar email will be going out to Plumpton.

“I’m just going to have to step away from horse racing like I said. I think they’ve acted very responsibly. They haven’t put any real thought into it, and I think it’s gonna bite him on the bum, and my resources will be elsewhere now in keeping my company going.”

More than just racing to consider

On the face of things, the tax raises haven’t been as bad as the worst case scenario, which would have seen both RGD and Machine Games Duty (MGD) go up to 50%. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Social Market Foundation (SMF), two of the biggest advocates for tax, were also calling for land-based casinos to pay 66%.

The increase in RGD to 40% and GBD to 25% is still a far heavier blow than the Treasury’s initial consideration, however, particularly to online-only or online-oriented firms. The department had initially consulted on merging RGD with GBD and Pool Betting Duty (the latter also 15%) into one single 21% rate.

Marketing is an inevitable casualty of this. Flutter Entertainment, Entain and Evoke have all stated intentions to cut down on marketing, with the former estimating a reduction in investment of 20% from April-September 2026.

Horse racing may have escaped a tax on bets, but it is hardly out of the woods. Other small and mid-sized bookmakers with a presence in horse racing have already expressed similar sentiment to BetGoodwin’s CEO, with DragonBet and JenningsBet saying so to the Racing Post.

Other companies have cited even more drastic measures. According to The Guardian, small independent bookmaker Macbet Sports has said that it will no longer be able to offer football bets once GBD is set at 25%. Given that football is the most bet on sport in the UK, taking over from horse racing back in 2019, this is a pretty big move.

Speaking on iGaming Daily this week, Dan Waugh, Partner at compliance advisory firm Regulus Partners, shared his view on the potential impact on sports:

“You’ve got knock-on effects potentially on sports itself, on racing, on rugby league, on darts – all these things that are part of the ecosystem that in part rely on funding from the betting industry. It’s a time of deep concern, I would have thought, for all involved.”

It’s not entirely doom and gloom, at least not for some, however. Entain and Flutter’s share prices have actually risen in the aftermath of the budget, although Evoke is having a much more tricky time of things, having been facing some financial troubles for some time.

The Guardian also reports that some city analysts are backing betting and gaming stocks to remain in a broadly good state moving forward. Others are also encouraging prospective buyers to take a look at gaming PLCs, perhaps expecting some incumbents to sell up assets in response to tax raises.

This isn’t entirely unfounded, with Entain having reportedly been muling up a sale of its Irish Ladbrokes Coral assets this year. This industry is also hardly a stranger to M&A at the best of times, let alone at a time of considerable financial pressure.

Lastly, there is also industry image to consider. Throughout the tax debate the industry routinely pointed to the black market as an example of the risk of what can happen, similar to during the Gambling Act review.

While this argument isn’t without merit, with even the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicting that some customers will move to illicit platforms as a result of tax raises, the regulated industry is hardly squeaky clean either.

If it was, the Gambling Commission wouldn’t have to keep initiating enforcement actions against it. If the gambling industry wants to find itself in a more favourable political position, it may benefit from looking inward as well as outward.