The revenue from the special tax for online gambling has already reached, in the first half of the year, what it was expected to raise for the whole of 2018, the report by the Public Finance Council (CFP) on Social Security accounts stated last week.
The revenue from this tax, which was expected to decrease in 2018 and stand at five million - while in 2017 Social Security raised six million euros - has already reached the amount collected in all of 2017, thus verifying a budget execution of 118.4%. This means that the forecast of the State Budget for the whole year was reached only in six months, and still exceeded 18.4%.
The special tax for online gambling was created in 2016, with part of the tax assigned to Social Security for purposes of social action - other portions of the revenue with this rate revert to the Ministry of Health and also to the Ministry of Education and Science, among others.
Since it was licensed, online gambling has been gaining popularity in Portugal, which is evident in the number of operators registered to fulfill this service: only between the second half of 2017 and the first of 2018 were granted 13 operating licenses of online gaming to eight entities.
At the end of June 2018, 984 thousand players were registered with the authorized entities. Only in June, a month marked by the football world cup, added another 50 thousand registered users.
Driven by competition won by France, but also by new licenses, online gaming revenues increased 24% during the first six months of the year to 70.2 million euros. In the second quarter alone, revenues amounted to 37.3 million euros.
Online gambling, Social VAT continues to generate the largest "slice"
Although it is increasing significantly, the revenue generated from online gambling tax remains the least significant for Social Security. More important are the revenues from social games that, in this semester, were within the forecast.
The Government expected that in 2018 these would be reduced by about 7.3%, and by the end of June, with half of last year, had been collected 53% of what was expected for the year. Thus, revenues from social games have so far accounted for Social Security to 117 million euros.
But the biggest revenue in terms of taxes remains the Social VAT: Social Security joined by 412 million euros at the end of June, exactly half of the forecast for the year, which should total 824 million euros - a small increase, of 3.4% compared to that of 2017.
Source: GMB / eco.pt
