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Belgian court overturns a law that imposed VAT on online gambling

Published

8 months ago

April 2, 2018

Athira A

Belgium gambling. Photo credits: https://www.google.co.in

Reading Time: 2 minutes

A Belgian court overturned a law that imposed value added tax (VAT) on online gambling in the country, owing to the challenges raised by several high-profile gaming operators.

Thus, the ruling by the Belgian Constitutional Court overturned the 2016 amendment introduced by the Belgian Finance Ministry that ended a VAT exemption for gaming operators.

Introduced on August 1st, 2016, this amendment called for licensees to pay an additional 21 per cent tax on Belgian operations with the anticipations to generate €75m per year for the government.

This triggered legal challenges from a diverse range of companies, including European operators Kindred Group, Casinos Austria International, and PokerStars who were were backed up by local brands Carousel, betFIRST, and Casino Belgium, accompanied by the government of Belgium’s French-speaking Walloon Region.

The operators emphasized that with lotteries still exempt from paying VAT on activities, the move distorted competition in the market.

They also pointed out that despite creating additional tax revenue in the short-term, it could reduce gaming tax in the long-term. With escalated costs making it more expensive, and less attractive, to operate in Belgium, it was creating a situation in which unlicensed operators could thrive, they said.

This argument was supported by the Walloon Government, which also argued that by removing the VAT exemption for gambling the federal government had encroached on the freedoms of the regional authorities.

The Constitutional Court accepted the arguments and scrapped the VAT provision for gaming companies.

However, it said, VAT paid on Belgian operations since August 2016 would not be reimbursed.

“Given the budgetary and administrative difficulties that would arise from the reimbursement of taxes already paid, it is therefore necessary to permanently maintain the effects of the provisions set aside,” the court explicated.

Kindred Group welcomed the court’s decision, saying that it highlighted the incompatibility of consumer protection and tax revenue objectives, especially when products and channels are taxed at different rates.

“For any gambling policy to succeed and with the ‘better offer one click away’, locally regulated online operators must be able to provide services of equivalent value to end consumers as services provided by competitors in the global digital world,” the operator said.

“Kindred remains a strong advocate of sustainable regulation based upon a borderless digital market and channelling consumer demand to licensed offerings. We look forward to working with national and international policy makers and regulators to ensure gaming policy is sustainable and fact based.”

SOURCE: GamingIntelligence

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Athira A

Athira is a self-described “logophile” – a lover of words. She loves updating her vocabulary and playing around with words, to frame a sensible world of letters. Letters come alive when they become words and when words become sentences. And that’s her job, to put them together in a meaningful way without loosing its essence. She has written content for websites, articles and poems for an international magazine, and press releases as well. She also loves writing on social media. She holds a Masters degree in bio-technology, but she has always been interested in the organic farming of words. Besides writing content for our daily news feed, she is also working as staff writer/editor with Impressions Content Management, based in Kerala, India, which offers writing and editing services to clients around the world.

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Latest News

Week 46 slot games releases

Published

1 day ago

November 16, 2018

George Miller

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Make sure you check out this week’s latest slot game releases!

We kicked off this week with Eye Motion and their new game called: “Beating Fruits” slot from Beating series. This is considered to be a 20 line slot game, which contains Wild, Scatter icons, has Free Spin, chance and high 97% return to player percent.

Beating Fruits slot game

Evoplay Entertainment, the innovative game development studio, announced that it is to showcase its new slot title at SiGMA 2018 later this month. The game, Syndicate, is a thrilling journey into east coast America’s unsavoury underworld, where the proceeds of crime give players the chance of landing 1024 possible winning combinations. “Our mission with every game is to revolutionise the iGaming user experience through innovative gameplay and we’ve designed Syndicate to offer features never seen before in the industry. – commented Kate Romanenko, Chief Business Officer at Evoplay.

Evoplay Entertainment-Syndicate slot

Novomatic surprised us with the presentation of its Voodoo Fortunes slot game. The game was presented for the first time in Mexico on the Panthera Curve 1.43 cabinet, which delivers the game in impressive 4K resolution on a 43ins curved display. Created by Winfinity Games, Voodoo Fortunes is part of the Fortunes game series and impressed at the event with its detailed graphics and engaging gameplay.

Voodoo Fortunes slot

Quickspin’s latest 4×5 videoslot: Tiger’s Glory, is its most action-packed showdown yet, pitting tiger versus gladiator in a story of epic victory. With Enraged Tiger Free Spin bonus triggered when three or more Bonus Scatter symbols hit the reels, the players follow the story of the victorious tiger, with free spins awarded whenever the tiger wins in battle.

Quickspin’s Tiger’s Glory slot

Iron Dog Studio presented its latest slot video game, The Curious Cabinet. It is a 5×4 slot game where players explore an antique dresser in macabre settings. Each of the features in The Curious Cabinet has a supernatural history: a human heart is pierced with voodoo pins; a skull has cursed rubies in its eye sockets. And two spooky scatter symbols—a sinister doll and a keyhole with a monstrous eye on the other side—come to life as they expand with rich animations and reveal potentially spectacular payouts.

The Curious Cabinet slot

Wazdan has launched another immersive HTML5 slots gam: Black Hawk Deluxe, which is the thrilling sequel to their incredibly popular Black Hawk. Set in the impressive haunted grounds of a spooky castle, this 4-reel, 3-column slot from the master games-maker includes a soundtrack to send shivers up the spine with rattling chains of ghosts abandoned in the dungeons and a menacing Black Hawk who soars and swoops charged by vicious lighting strikes that frizzle across the screen adding an air of terror to the quest for gold and treasure.

Wazdan's Black Hawk Deluxe horror game launch

Nolimit City introduced their latest release – Welcome to Ice Ice Yeti! Nolimit’s cutest and most rewarding game to date! Ice Ice Yeti is designed to appeal to players of all kind – with expanding reels from 5×4 growing up to 5×7, the game is a definite pleaser to all those seeking the biggest rewards after a good chase. Boasting over 16,000 ways of possible winning combinations and over 8820x multiplier possible win, this is Nolimit’s most volatile game to date.

Ice Ice Yeti slot

Yggdrasil Gaming has released its first ever branded slot game – Nitro Circus, an adrenaline-fuelled game featuring Nitro Circus’ biggest stars, greatest stunts and craziest vehicles. Yggdrasil’s exclusive Nitro Circus slot brings the adrenaline fuelled action of the arena to online casinos. The stand out feature of the game is the unique Nitro Jump which is inspired by the infamous 15-metre Giganta Ramp seen in Nitro Circus’ live shows.

Yggdrasil’s Nitro Circus Slot Game

Leading casino supplier Play’n GO announced the release of their latest slot game, Dragon Maiden; an epic slot adventure full of flame and fortune! This new slot centres around Geneth the Dragon Maiden, a legendary warrior who is the key to conquering the fearsome Red Dragon, unlocking its awesome power and the untold riches it guards.

Play’n GO new slot

Asia

Philippines casino shows strong results

Published

1 day ago

November 16, 2018

Niji Ng

Photo Source: vigattintourism.com

Reading Time: 1 minute

Resorts World Manila, an integrated resort in the Philippines posted impressive results for the third quarter to September 30. The company reported an overall revenue of PHP4.7bn (€68.8m), which higher than the revenue of PHP3.5bn (€58.3m) in the previous comparative quarter.

The above figure is only the revenue from gaming activities. Non-gaming businesses, including hotel, F&B and other retail, reported a revenue of PHP5.9bn (€ 98.4m) and the year-to-date to PHP16.9bn (€261.8m). The net profit for the year-to-date was PHP1.8bn (€30m).

Resorts World Manila has been operating as a casino and hotel since 2009. Operator Travellers International Hotel Group also has other hotels and an events and convention centre.