Peruvian congressman Walter Ascona has submitted a bill that aims at taxing online gambling and sports games. If approved, the tax would take 12% of the revenue to be shared among municipalities and provinces.
Currently, although online gambling in Peru is not regulated, it registers revenues of around $485m according to local outlet RPP. The bill would subject the business to a 12% tax on revenues, which would help raise $65m for the state annually.
Additionally, the new bill seeks the introduction of programs that would invest in measures to prevent problem gambling and would also promote sports, educational and cultural activities.
Furthermore, the project stipulates that if a company has headquarters in Peru, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Trade would be in charge of creating a structure to define how 60% of revenues would be sent to the provinces, with the remaining 40% going to the municipalities.
In cases where companies don’t have a physical address, the revenues would be shared among all municipalities in Peru.
Casinos register $540m in losses
The Casinos and Slots Workers Union has warned that the sector has sustained losses of $540m since the pandemic started, and 10% of the companies went bankrupt in recent months.
The Union’s representative Iván Katekaru reported that around 15% of the jobs have been lost, saying: “This union is made up of approximately 800 operations nationwide. It’s one of the largest sources of jobs in the country with 87,000 formal jobs and 250,000 indirect jobs, and one of the most organized sectors as it contributes more than $135m a year.”
Moreover, Katekaru urged the Presidency of the Council of Ministers to review the situation in the sector to allow them to reopen with a reduced capacity.
“I believe that they should give us the opportunity to keep working and treat us as a major entertainment industry, just like restaurants and shopping malls,” he said.
