Labour Donor Says He Is Open To Engaging With Reform UK About Gambling Taxes
Former poker player and top Labour donor Derek Webb advocates for higher taxes for online gambling and tighter regulation of the industry (Alamy)
9 min read
Labour donor and former professional poker player Derek Webb says he is open to having conversations with Reform about gambling tax and regulations. He speaks to PoliticsHome about the dark world of lobbying and why appearing soft on gambling could harm Labour
Webb made his millions as an international poker player and casino table game inventor. Speaking to PoliticsHome in a five-star hotel in London’s affluent Knightsbridge neighbourhood, his primary mission now is to advocate for tighter regulations around the very industry that had made him his fortune.
After retiring from poker and selling up his business in 2011, Webb founded and funded the Campaign for Fairer Gambling to spread awareness of gambling harms and make the case for change. He is now one of Labour’s top financial backers.
Asked whether he would ever consider lending financial support to Reform, he refuses to answer either way. But he would be open to having conversations with the party on measures to better regulate the sector.
“I'm confident that Reform would want to prevent offshore companies accessing British gambling,” he says. Many remote gambling operators avoid UK corporation tax by basing parts of their operations offshore.
However, Reform does not currently have any public policy relating to gambling. Leader Nigel Farage wrote in The Sun earlier this year that Labour’s new gambling levy was “anti-fun” and Reform would be the “only party” that would “protect your right to stick a harmless tenner on a football match”.
“I haven't had that conversation yet with Reform, but I would perceive that Reform will want to have controls over gambling in some respects,” Webb says.
“Gambling should be cross-party. It should be bipartisan.”
Webb was Labour’s fifth-largest individual donor between 2023 and 2024, giving £1.3m over this period up to the general election after finding himself “disgusted” with the Conservative government’s approach to gambling.
It's detrimental to Labour to be perceived to be weak on gambling
He has not donated to Labour again since the election and refuses to say whether his future support is dependent on reforms to the gambling sector. “I haven't thought about that, I just play the hand at the time,” he claims, maintaining his poker face.
Yet the multimillionaire has plenty of warnings for Labour, including that the party risks losing older or disillusioned voters to Reform UK if it appears “weak on gambling.”
Webb claims there is strong support for tougher gambling regulation among older, Conservative-leaning voters, many of whom could turn to Reform. Despite Farage’s more recent criticisms of gambling reform, UKIP’s 2015 manifesto supported cutting the stake on fixed-odds betting terminals from £100 to £2. Webb helped to fund the successful campaign to get this change into law in 2018.
“There is a group of voters who would wish for controls on gambling,” Webb says.
“They don't want their grandkids on all the online stuff. It's detrimental to Labour to be perceived to be weak on gambling. It's detrimental for them politically.”
Webb, now in his mid-70s, was first exposed to gambling at a young age himself. He was raised by a “normal” family in Derby in the 1950s, where his father worked as a design liaison at Rolls Royce, and he entered the world of gambling as a teenager, quickly learning how to win poker against adults.
“Then Texas Hold’em came to Britain, and that was really when everything kicked off,” Webb says. “It was the only thing I did.”
Webb’s international poker playing career took him to around a dozen different countries. In the mid-1990s, he created the concept of a fast-paced casino game which later became Three Card Poker. After he eventually sold the rights to the game, he turned his attention to campaigning for gambling reform over the last decade.
“I was unhappy with the way that online gambling had been allowed to grow in Britain,” Webb explains.
The former poker star is now opposing the Treasury’s consultation on merging the three existing gambling taxes – general betting duty, pool betting duty, and remote gaming duty – into one. He warned in a submission that the change would have “undesirable consequences”.
Some Labour MPs agree. Alex Ballinger, a member of the Gambling Related Harm APPG, told PoliticsHome that online casinos and slots should continue paying higher taxes than “your local bingo hall or bookmakers”, arguing that online gambling companies are “engaged in the most harmful forms of gambling”.
Ballinger and other backbenchers are also pushing for wider reforms, including tighter controls on targeted advertising and a significant rise in remote gaming duty in the autumn budget. In September 2024, the IPPR think tank called for raising the duty from 21 per cent to 50 per cent.
“I want gambling to be legal rather than illegal, but it has to be economically beneficial”
Webb goes further, saying it “could be as high as 60 per cent”. He argues that gambling is “detrimental” to the economy and that “far more people are employed” in traditional sectors than gambling.
“I don't call it an industry,” he says. “Industry produces something. I want gambling to be legal rather than illegal, but it has to be economically beneficial.”
However, others have urged against implementing tax rises that could harm the sector. Labour MP Richard Baker wrote in The House that "for most people, betting is a normal part of their leisure time, and the industry contributes billions in tax and thousands of jobs, while supporting vital causes including sport".
He argued that while tax reform must always be kept under review, it should be considered "along with any potential unintended consequences", and that "modern betting shops provide jobs and footfall on high streets that have struggled in recent years", including in his own constituency.
In response to the op-ed, Webb tells PoliticsHome: “This is just the BGC telling an MP ‘stick up for us and we'll take you to the races’.
“It’s sick, it’s disgraceful that the sector can buy politicians so easily. There are more betting shops than there are Greggs, McDonalds and Starbucks combined. We need MPs to support Post Offices and banks on the high street rather than betting shops."
Labour MP Alex Ballinger and a group of other MPs are putting pressure on the government to hike gambling taxes and tighten regulations (Alamy)
The BGC and Baker told PoliticsHome that Baker has not attended any sporting events with the BGC. Baker said he had only attended "the initiatives in my constituency I referred to in my opinion piece".
"I entirely agree that we need to look at all the ways we can stimulate our high streets, but it is the case this sector does play a role," the MP added.
A BGC spokesperson said the comparison with fast food outlets was "misleading" as there are almost 50,000 of these throughout the UK.
"Despite frequent claims from the anti-gambling lobby about the prevalence of betting shops on our high streets, the reality is that more than 2,400 have closed since 2019, leaving just 5,870 across the UK," they said.
"This sharp decline highlights the significant and ongoing pressures facing the sector, which still supports around 46,000 jobs nationwide."
Webb, along with some MPs like Ballinger, also wants a new Gambling Act with proper enforcement.
“If people are not willing to comply, then they should lose their licence and the executives should be at personal risk if they're deliberately not complying.”
According to Webb, the work of major regulators leaves much to be desired. While the Gambling Commission needs “more money” and “more staff”, Webb criticises their prosecution of Tory figures – including Rishi Sunak’s former PPS Craig Williams – for placing bets on the date of last year’s election, while simultaneously allowing abuse of the law by big companies.
“They've got to change their attitude,” he says.
“What's the point in prosecuting these Tories who made a mistake and didn't get any financial benefit from it, when you allow your licensees to abuse the law? It's a double standard.”
Webb accuses the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for “not yet being able to enforce perfect cookie use by the operators” three years after a complaint was brought forward.
He is also scathing of general “inertia” within the civil service and the vulnerability of policymakers to industry lobbying.
“There's people who fund for financial advantage, and that is not me“
Some former MPs, such as Philip Davies and Laurence Robertson, have maintained business links with the gambling trade both during and after their time in Parliament. According to The Guardian, gambling lobbyists have launched a summer charm offensive to persuade ministers against raising taxes on the sector, including hosting a darts event with special advisers and MPs’ staff.
Webb says this was “symptomatic” of fundamental problems with lobbying across multiple sectors, particularly in the tech world: “If we can't get gambling right, how can we get AI, social media, data, crypto right?”
As a major donor, Webb clearly also has the financial means to have political influence himself. But he insists he does not see his donations as having strings attached.
“I’d be happy if there were no donations,” he says.
“I'd be happy if it was all funded through a normal funding system. There's people who fund for financial advantage, and that is not me. I don't have any skin in the game.”
He also claims he had “more access” under the previous Conservative government than he has had with Keir Starmer’s No 10, and says he has never met Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is under pressure to raise taxes or making spending cuts in the autumn budget in order to plug the gaping hole in the UK's public finances (Alamy)
Despite the challenges, Webb is optimistic that change will come under this government.
“I don't think anything can stop some increase in gambling taxes,” he says. “Whether it'll be adequate, I don’t know.”
He urges the Labour administration to speed up the process: “It has to happen in the long run…You might as well do it as soon as you can.
“I'd be disappointed if Labour didn't get a chance to do five more years, but I believe it's got more chance of doing five more years if its mindset is that we need to do something about gambling.”
Webb is disappointed that Labour did not include new gambling legislation in its 2024 manifesto, but believes it was the party's intention to prioritise it as a health issue.
“They've just got so much on their plate,” he says. “It's just not easy, you can't do everything at once, and they came to power without having really specific, dedicated policies. I don't expect anything to happen overnight. I'm open minded, I'm just pragmatic.”
At the end of the interview, he pays the hotel waiter £30 in cash for one cup of tea and one double espresso.
“I want you to know I'm old fashioned,” he tells PoliticsHome with a smile. “I want you to understand I leave more than I should as well, because I'm a donor.”
