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Housing Benefits and Gambling Winnings
Any idea on how winnings/earnings from small regular gambling is treated for benefit (specifically HB/CTB) purposes? Client is not claiming JSA or ESA and is living off small regular gambling winnings. Wants to know whether this is treated as earnings for HB or savings (if below £6,000). I can’t find anything in any of the ref books.
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Welfare rights adviser - Plumstead Community Law Centre
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Its not earnings because the winnings are not subject to national insurance contributions.
Income and capital is not defined in the legisalation and so the words are given their normal every day meaning, but as the winnings are regular, that gives them the quality of income rather than capital.
This means that the winnings are most likely to be assessed as income other than earnings and so the earned income disregards will not be applied.
Is this person some kind of mathermatician with a very good knowledge of statistics? If not then surely he cannot keep on relying on this winning streak
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Independent HB/CTB administrator, consultant & trainer (Essex)
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Blimey! I’m in shock (despite being all but exhausted). I know something Stainsby doesn’t… (is it April Fool’s day??)
Gambling winnings are capital for benefit purposes - CH/0412/2007 & CH/4143/2007 (same decision).
File Attachments
- CH 0412 2007.doc (File Size: 43KB - Downloads: 4316)
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Welfare rights adviser - Plumstead Community Law Centre
Total Posts: 622
Joined: 17 June 2010
CH/0412/2007 is not on the Upper Tribunal’s website, nor is CIS/2753/2000, (cited by Judge Ward)
Nevertheless I have downloaded CH/0412/2007 for future reference as it is a binding authority unless and until another Judge disagrees with it.
Thanks Kevin, I will concede that I was wrong on this one
[ Edited: 7 Dec 2010 at 02:24 pm by Stainsby ]forum member
Independent HB/CTB administrator, consultant & trainer (Essex)
Total Posts: 474
Joined: 16 June 2010
No problem - just glad to get it sorted.
Thanks that’s really helpful. I presume the same would apply to JSA? Winnings would be counted as capital so still entitled to JSA as long as doesn’t go over £6k
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Welfare rights adviser - Plumstead Community Law Centre
Total Posts: 622
Joined: 17 June 2010
No reason why it should not apply to JSA
“Its not earnings because the winnings are not subject to national insurance contributions.”
I’m not sure that I understand this. I don’t believe that there are provisions which specifically exclude them from NI.
The question is surely whether the ‘money’ is the product of employment.
If he was running a casino then his income would be the product of gambling, him v the punters, and that would certainly be earnings.
If he is occupied in this self-employed endeavour as his way of making a living then I can see some compelling reasons why his net gain could count as earnings.
I can, however, see some interesting arguments around ‘in expectation of….’.
...and that’ll teach me to read the rest of the posts before chiming in.
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Independent HB/CTB administrator, consultant & trainer (Essex)
Total Posts: 474
Joined: 16 June 2010
Just for completeness, I have heard it argued that (specifically) poker is not gambling because there is a level of skill involved. However, the Court of Appeal (in R v Kelly) concluded that while poker did indeed involve skill, the degree of chance was still sufficiently high for poker to be regarded as gambling, in law.
Kelly: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2008/137.html