Will bookmakers pay more?
Domestic bookmakers have been the main donors to Russian sports over the past few years. The tax legislation has changed repeatedly in relation to them. Naturally, towards tightening. Recently it became known that the government is again updating a number of provisions in order to streamline the activities of bookmakers, or more precisely, their deductions to the budget.
For example, it is assumed that the new law will allow changing the so-called target payments of bookmakers, which are directed to support sports. Today, this is 1.5% per quarter from all player deposits. The changes will allow increasing these deductions within the following limits:
- 2025-2027 – 1.7%;
- 2028-2029 – 1.8%;
- after 2030 – 2%.
At the moment, legal bookmakers work with a "minimum bar" of 30 million rubles per month. It is assumed that it will remain in the future. However, the distribution of the funds received will change. In particular, the emphasis will be on youth and children's sports. Today, these areas receive about 20%, and in the near future the amounts will increase to 30%. Accordingly, professional sports will receive less - 70% instead of 80%.
Thanks to the work of the bookmaker, Russian sports receive quite large sums. For example, in 2022, about 14 billion rubles were transferred to it. This money is distributed depending on the popularity and demand for the sport. Last year, the statistics looked like this:
- Football Union – 1st place;
- Table Tennis Federation – 2nd place;
- Hockey Federation – 3rd place.
In just three years, bookmaker deductions have grown significantly. If in 2019 they amounted to only 1.15 billion rubles, then in 2021 they were already 10 billion rubles, and in 2022 - 13.8 billion rubles. Such a rapid growth in deductions is explained by the interest of gambling Russians in major sporting events. In 2021, these were the Summer Olympics and the European Football Championship, in 2022 - the Winter Olympics and the World Cup. Also, the increased transparency of bets has a significant impact on the increase in bookmaker turnover, which completely satisfies customers.
