Cambodia’s Finance Minister has warned his government colleagues that gambling tax contributions will decrease significantly from next year due to the recently approved ban on online gambling.
Cambodia’s government collected tax revenue of $50 million in 2018 from gambling services conducted on the territory of the Kingdom and expects about the same amount in 2019.
The nation’s Finance Minister, Aun Pornmoniroth, this week met with the president of the Cambodian Youth Party and a member of the nation’s Supreme Consultative Council, Pich Sros, to discuss the 2020 budget.
During the meeting, Minister Pornmoniroth was recorded saying that they “received considerable tax revenue from the casino industry” and that tax revenue contributions are set to slide significantly as a result from the online gambling ban.
The Finance Minister noted that despite the expected reduced contributions to the national budget, the ban was introduced in a bid to prevent unscrupulous businesses from operating in Cambodia and to ensure the nation’s economic stability.
Over the years, Cambodia has become a boon to Chinese investors who took advantage of the country’s online gambling licensing system to provide gaming and sports betting services to customers based in other Asian countries, predominantly ones in Mainland China.
In order to obtain remote gaming licenses, foreign investors were required to operate land-based casinos on the territory of the country, which led to a quick and significant increase in the number of brick-and-mortar gambling establishments around Cambodia.
The Online Gambling Ban
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen signed in August a directive that orders the government to stop issuing new online gambling licenses and not to renew existing ones. The online gambling ban, which is slated to take effect by the end of the year, read that “some foreign criminals have taken refuge in the form of [online] gambling to cheat and extort money from victims, domestic and abroad.”
Cambodians are forbidden to gamble online, but the nation’s booming remote gambling industry has lured many residents into neglecting the ban and placing a wager.
The crackdown on online gambling unleashed exodus of Chinese nationals employed in Cambodia’s remote gambling industry. According to stats from the nation’s Interior Ministry around 6,000 nationals have been leaving Cambodia every day since the introduction of the anti-online gambling directive.
Minister Pornmoniroth said this week that “the [finance] ministry needs Chinese investment, except for online gambling”
A spokesperson for the Finance Ministry said that ministers plan to provide more opportunities for foreign investors who are interested in investing in Cambodia and that they will be able to pour cash in different fields such as real estate development and economics.
Source: Casino tax haul to drop due to online gambling ban, khmertimeskh.com
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