The chancellor, John Healey, is considering increasing taxes on slot machines as part of efforts to raise billions of pounds in the October budget.
Officials in the Treasury are modelling how much money could be generated from different increases in the rate of machine games duty, according to government sources. The duty applies to things such as slot machines, electronic roulette, fixed odds betting terminals and fruit machines in a wide range of venues.
Healey needs to raise billions of pounds through tax rises or spending cuts in the budget to pay for already announced defense spending increases and cost-of-living announcements from Andy Burnham’s first week in office.
