Although the state of Montana is not among those that are about to legalize online gambling, the tax revenues generated via video gambling in 2014 fiscal year were really satisfactory. Despite the fact that a drop of 0.2% was reported as compared to figures posted in 2013, the video gambling revenue amounted to $57 million.
Actually, the revenues from video gambling have undergone lots of ups and downs during the years. The highest amount of $63 million was generated in 2008 but three years later it could hardly rise to $49 million. Luckily, things got better to reach the current values.
Actually, Rick Ask, the Gambling Control Division Administrator, defined the issues the video gambling sector in Montana went through as the “perfect storm”. Nevertheless, the video gambling revenues survived the bad weather, the smoking ban, the economic crisis and remained relatively stable.
The higher the revenues are, the higher the amount that goes to the general fund of Montana is.
It seems like 2015 will be a really profitable year and the comment made by Rick Ask comes to prove that. Bearing in mind the results, accomplished during 2014 fiscal year, he expressed his hopes that the revenue will go beyond the generated $57 million.
The following scheme is applied when it comes to video gambling tax deductions: as much as 15% out of the turnover generated via video gambling activities is set aside for taxes. Of course, the sums paid out to winners are not subject to taxation.
During the 2014 fiscal year, there were 16,684 video gambling machines available on the territory of the state, which means that each of of these generated approximately $22,750 annually.
As far as the annual gross income is concerned, it is equal to $379.6 million. By comparison, the amount generated during 2013 fiscal year was $380 million.
As a matter of fact, the number of video gambling machines that were available ten years ago was higher than their quantity today. However, the difference is that the contemporary ones provide players with more gaming options such as keno, poker or line games.
In conclusion, Ask said that the video gambling industry in the state of Montana is going well and significant progress has been made since 2008. He also added that the gambling industry itself is not developing as fast as it used to but that should not be a bother. At the end of the day, no industry remains stable during hard times but what is important is its resistance to different issues.
It is worthy of mentioning that the decent revenues should not serve as an indication that everyone who takes part in video gambling activities wins a life changing sum of money but in general, the revenues are said to be in the satisfactory range.
