By nature, businesses are taxable, so it makes sense that casinos should be taxed. But in some countries, they also tax individual gambling winnings. That got me thinking, what’s the real purpose behind that? Most of us gamblers are overall losers anyway, so what impact does taxing the winnings really have?
Would it actually boost government revenue, or could it backfire and discourage people from gambling altogether, knowing it’s already hard to win and when they finally do, they still have to pay taxes?
Well it's not supposed to encourage gambling, that's for sure. In some countries taxing something harmful is combatting the harmful effects on society. With tobacco and alcohol it's the physical medical issues that cost countries ton of money, as their workforce isn't efficient enough and because of medical bills in countries that have free medical healthcare.
Same goes with the problem gambling, as government want to protect these people because of 2 reasons. One is because of empathy, and second is because creating problems for their workforce has net minus effect to their bkt
Then there's obviously the fact that government tax from everywhere where money is involved. Some things are more sensible to for taxing, depending what the government's political leaning is.
But if they really would want to discourage gambling, they would start by banning advertisement of it, or banning it all together.