A controversial online casino tax cut needs time to work out, Eesti 200 MP Tanel Tein said.
It is over-regulation and not the lower tax rate, which Tein's party sponsored, which is behind lower than hoped-for tax revenues, the MP went on.
The tax cut, passed last December, lowered the online casino rate from 6 percent to 4 percent, in increments over a two-year period. Receipts fell 9.7 percent in the first seven months of 2026, while the Cultural Endowment, one of the main recipients of the tax revenues, has forecast a €6–7 million shortfall for next year, directly as a result of the lower revenues.
Speaking to "Aktuaalne kaamera," Tein called comparing six months of receipts to a four-year strategy short-sighted, adding the Finance Ministry's forecasts do not represent money in the budget.
The gambling tax cut was your big mission in politics — do you concede failure?
Its aim was to bring extra funding to sport and culture; a private funding foundation and a sports facilities fund were set up at the Cultural Endowment for that purpose. The tax strategy is set up over four years, so assessing it after six months is very short-sighted.
Why do you say that? It can already be seen that the state budget has received half as much tax revenue.
No. If we compare the tax base we had in 2025, in 2026 it has grown noticeably. When we hiked the gambling tax from 5 to 6 percent, growth in the tax base fell sharply — and that is a very important signal that we need to grow the tax base, so there is something to tax.
The Ministry of Finance disagrees with you, while the Cultural Endowment's forecast is something else entirely compared with what you promised at the start of this year.
The Ministry of Finance's forecast is just that, a forecast; it is not money in the budget. And we have to ask why in earlier years growth in the tax base was nearly 40 percent, and during the tax rise it fell sharply to zero. That is a very important point, and it is the market participants themselves who must be asked. It is known that nearly two-thirds of tax revenue comes from foreign operators. To my knowledge, the Ministry of Finance has not spoken to them about what they will do if the tax rises or falls. But the bigger problem is over-regulation.
It is very convenient to blame other officials and institutions for over-regulating. You seem to think pawn brokers are over-regulated too. But the forecast has not matched reality.
A forecast is not money in the state budget. Take the simple example of the car tax: the forecast said €130 million would flow into the state budget, and in fact around €50 million did — so forecasts are very often wrong. We need to know the substance: why that taxpayer and that tax revenue comes to Estonia, what we need to do for it, what other countries are doing so that we are in the international market and competitive. I would very much listen to what the sector and the market participants themselves say on this point — and today they say we over-regulate.
Your own forecasts were €95 million in online casino tax revenue by 2029. Today it's clear that won't happen — what forecasts are you still waiting for?
Let's settle one thing: that was not a forecast, it was an assumption. It was a simulation of what would happen if we succeeded in bringing ten licenses a year to Estonia — and now we have to ask what we should do to bring those ten licenses a year.
What needs to be done? The Cultural Endowment says there is no money to fund projects.
At the Cultural Endowment we have to look at what other tax receipts have fallen. Alcohol and tobacco excise have fallen, [state lottery] Eesti Loto has fallen — all of them. And now the remote gambling tax is being made the political culprit, which in my view is not right. In previous years the remote gambling tax has continued to cover shortfalls in other areas, and that hasn't been talked about.
In your view, should the Riigikogu reverse the legislative amendment?
If our tax base falls, then that tax percentage could be 30. We won't get more tax from it; we need to get more companies here, and for that we need to know what we have to do. We must not over-regulate.
Background:
The tax cut was passed last December and lowers the rate from 6 percent to 4 percent by 2029. The Ministry of Finance forecast a €6–37 million shortfall across 2026–2029. Prime Minister Kristen Michal has said the government will revisit the cut if it brings no extra revenue.
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