{"id":111935,"date":"2026-08-08T17:34:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/111935\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:34:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:34:22","slug":"malta-leads-fight-against-eu-bid-to-tax-big-gambling-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/111935\/","title":{"rendered":"Malta leads fight against EU bid to tax Big Gambling \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>But the campaign has run into strong opposition from Malta. The tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, with a population of just over half a million people, is home to a burgeoning betting sector. It says that higher taxes will cripple its gambling industry, boost illegal operators and drive firms outside the bloc.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Malta] will not accept the introduction of any EU-level taxes designed to sustain the bloc\u2019s spending,\u201d the country\u2019s Prime Minister, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maltatoday.com.mt\/news\/national\/142722\/abela_adamant_against_new_euwide_taxes_ahead_of_budget_talks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Robert Abela, told the Maltese Parliament in June.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But Shilton, who lost more than \u00a31 million in betting on horse racing over 45 years and now runs his own <a href=\"https:\/\/shiltonssilverlining.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">gambling addiction charity<\/a>, dismisses the arguments by Malta and the gambling lobbies as \u201cwindow dressing.\u201d He\u2019s in favor of higher taxes as he wants to shrink advertising revenue that is used to lure in new gamblers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDeep down they\u2019re after everybody\u2019s money. Simple as that,\u201d he told POLITICO during a visit to Brussels in June. <\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"651\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-461526092-1024x651.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8845660\"  \/>Former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton lost more than \u00a31 million in betting on horse racing over 45 years and now runs his own gambling addiction charity. | David Cannon\/Allsport\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The topic has split the EU\u2019s 27 governments, pitting gambling-heavy Southern European countries against their more supportive Western European peers, led by France. Capitals are already fighting even though the Commission hasn\u2019t yet issued a formal proposal for the possible tax, which would ultimately need to be unanimously approved by governments.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of numerous budget battle lines being drawn, with Ireland \u2014 which is steering the talks as chair of the rotating Council presidency \u2014 set to restart negotiations to facilitate an overall deal on <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/bills\/740629\/overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the EU budget<\/a> before the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But the campaign has run into strong opposition from Malta. The tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[8033,23456,2531,234,52,818,56550,2053,36141,1283,2581,367,3999,1894,10064,258,90,1408,3627,92,308,98,172,4618,128,27350,11464,118,15786,106,9224,754,451,108,109,56551],"class_list":["post-111935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-european-parliament","tag-advocacy","tag-antonio-tajani","tag-banking","tag-brexit","tag-budget","tag-cars","tag-club-med","tag-competition","tag-council-presidency","tag-courts","tag-debt","tag-defense","tag-enforcement","tag-england","tag-eu-budget","tag-european-parliament","tag-france","tag-fuels","tag-gaming","tag-germany","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-industry","tag-italy","tag-malta","tag-markets","tag-mediterranean-sea","tag-mental-health","tag-negotiations","tag-own-resources","tag-portugal","tag-public-health","tag-roberta-metsola","tag-services","tag-spain","tag-tax","tag-victor-negrescu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}