Cowen: targeting online gaming

ANOTHER leading bookmaker has joined critics of the government's plan to tax online and telephone betting.

Joe Lewins, managing director of Ladbrokes Ireland, said the tax wouldn't drag in the online gaming firms the government was targeting.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said in a speech this month that the government plans to get all gaming firms taking bets from Irish customers into the tax net in a bid to end state subsidies for horse racing.

Lewins said deterrents to stop companies offering online gaming, such as blocking IP addresses, failed to work in other countries. He also said raising the betting levy wouldn't produce a "golden egg" to support horseracing.

"There is a very simple solution. I can't understand why we can't have extended betting hours. Come September you are driving everything online because you are screwing the betting shops by closing early," Lewins said.

Last week Paddy Power chief Patrick Kennedy said increasing the betting levy would only hit his company and Boylesports as most other betting firms were offshore.