It seems that a major blow may come to the world of online casinos within the nation of Ireland. Online casino and sports book operator Paddy Power may possibly be leaving Ireland for more friendly and tax haven is shores. This seems like a rather strange development considering the fact that Paddy Power is built on Irish pride. But moving operations offshore would decrease the level of tax burden that the company continues to face by staying in Ireland. Tax issues are a number one concern for online casino and sports book operators. That is why so many operations for Internet gambling are concentrated in places where the tax agreements are very friendly and relaxed.

Over the course of 2009 Paddy Power reported a 15% decrease in pretax profits. This value came down to €67.2 million. And although there was a high street betting turnover, there was still incredible loss for a major powerhouse company. Facing monumental tax situations is a constant consideration for operators of online casinos and Paddy Power is not alone in this particular dilemma.

One of the major areas of the client for this particular sports book operation could be due to the fact that punters may be simply improving in their ability to pick winners when it comes to horse racing. But overall the increasing tax burden has made the most impact. Overall the company has paid more than 18 million euro worth of taxes and fees over the course of the last year that is incredible amount of money no matter what. For example, and increase in tax value at 1% for betting turnover could take away €2.5 million from the company’s yearly operating profit.

Tags: paddy power

This entry was posted on Friday, March 26th, 2010 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Online Gambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.