Sports betting, poker, lottery, scratch cards… your winnings from games of chance and gambling could soon be taxed

And if players were taxed ? Attached to the Court of Auditors, the Council of Compulsory Levies recommends taxing winnings over 500 euros.

In a note published at the end of December, the Council of Compulsory Levies (CPO) proposes six recommendations concerning the taxation of games of chance and gambling.

And one of them could particularly raise eyebrows among players, since it involves taxing their winnings. France – unlike several of its European neighbors – has never done so. It only taxes the winnings of professional poker and bridge players, underlines Le Figaro.

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The CPO considers that “the exemption of winnings constitutes a favorable signal to gambling, which gambling operators do not fail to highlight in advertisements“.

“In order to facilitate tax management”, the CPO suggests not taxing the smallest winnings but “setting a threshold by law, which could be of the order of 500 euros”.

Resources allocated to Social Security ?

Among the other measures mentioned in the note, there is notably the establishment of a levy on promotional expenses of gaming operators.

The special taxation of the sector is justified, according to the CPO, by “its consequences on public health”, it finally suggests allocating very largely the levies linked to gambling and games of chance to social security, which only captures barely a quarter of them.