Louis Chua on Casino Control (Amendment) Bill

There is room to look into raising gambling duties as a means of supplementing fiscal revenues, consistent with Singapore’s approach of raising taxes on activities with negative externalities, said MP Louis Chua. He noted that betting taxes as a percentage of GDP have been flat at around 0.5 per cent in past years, and gambling duties have been unchanged since 2014. Meanwhile, casino taxes were raised in 2022, but the two integrated resorts have been reporting very strong profitability. In Parliament on Tuesday (Sep 10), Mr Chua also asked if the authorities can better harness technology to prohibit access to illegal online gambling portals. He also made the point that retrospective applications of the law must not be treated lightly. This was in relation to a clause validating casino entry levies which were collected at a higher rate for over a month this year, due to an acknowledged oversight by the Ministry of Home Affairs which had overlooked the expiry of a five-year order on the raised levies.