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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rob Davies

Would a gambling tax rise in the budget really shut shops and cost jobs?

Row of slot machines
The are calls for the government to hike machine games duty from 20% to 40%. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Gambling industry kingpins are fuming about reports that the chancellor, John Healey, is considering increasing taxes on high-street slot machines in his first budget.

The influential Social Market Foundation thinktank, the most vocal advocate for a rise in machine games duty (MGD), from 20% to 40%, thinks the measure could raise between £275m and £460m annually, on top of the roughly £610m collected last year.

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