Gambling firms held 31 meetings with Treasury ministers in year before levy decision, records show

Gambling companies and their trade bodies met Treasury ministers 31 times in the 12 months before the government decided against raising duty on online casino games, according to an analysis of departmental transparency returns published on Tuesday by the campaign group Open Whitehall.

The returns, which departments publish quarterly and which the group has compiled into a searchable database, show that the industry met the chancellor or junior Treasury ministers an average of once every 12 days between July 2025 and June 2026. Over the same period, ministers recorded four meetings with public health bodies and gambling harm charities on the same subject, and one with the NHS clinics that treat addiction.

The government had been widely expected to increase remote gaming duty from 21% to as much as 40% in the spring statement, a move the Treasury’s own modelling suggested would raise £900m a year. The rate was instead held, with a smaller rise in general betting duty on horse racing bets. The decision was described at the time as “pragmatic”.

“Nobody is suggesting a meeting is a bribe,” said Clare Dunmore, Open Whitehall’s director. “But access is influence, and the imbalance here is extraordinary. Thirty-one to five. If you were a Treasury official trying to understand this market, whose voice would you have heard more often?”

The returns list the purpose of each meeting only in generic terms, most commonly “to discuss the gambling sector”. Eleven of the 31 meetings were with the Betting and Gaming Council, the industry’s trade body; the remainder were with individual operators, including three of the four largest online casino firms. Four meetings took place in the fortnight before the spring statement.

A spokesperson for the Betting and Gaming Council said the industry employed 110,000 people and paid £4bn a year in tax, and that “engaging with the Treasury on matters that affect that contribution is normal, legitimate and entirely transparent, which is exactly why these figures are available”.

A Treasury spokesperson said ministers “meet a wide range of stakeholders” and that the decision on duty had been made “on the basis of the evidence, including the risk of pushing players to unlicensed offshore sites”. The department has previously estimated that 3% of online stakes are placed with unlicensed operators.

The data has been passed to the Commons Treasury committee, which is considering an inquiry into tax policy and the gambling sector. The committee’s chair said on Tuesday that the figures “raise a question that deserves a proper answer rather than a press line”.