£30 limit call is sweet relief for bookies and Treasury

The Gambling Commission has given the betting industry a result that’s almost as good as all of Willie Mullins’ and Nicky Henderson’s top fancies being found lame on the eve of the Cheltenham Festival.

Amid a growing clamour for the Government to cut the maximum stake punters can wager through fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) to just £2 from the current £100, the industry’s regulator has recommended a cap of no more than £30 for the casino style games such as roulette they offer onscreen.

There are other proposals alongside it: A call for more use of tracked play to identify problem gamblers, tighter controls on online gaming too (a mobile phone puts a FOBT in your pocket so this makes some sense). But the £30 number quoted by the commission is still being seen as a big win for an industry that had been fearing the worst and served to lift some of the clouds that have hung over the shares of some of its most prominent horses.

Ladbrokes and and William Hill both had their ears pricked in the early stages of the Monday morning sponsored Stock Exchange Hurdle. Does this mean they will deliver at the business end of the race?

That’s still an interesting discussion to have. The final decision is in the hands of the Department for Culture Media & Sport, which has been engaged in a process of kicking the can down the road as regards making a decision.

Small wonder. The Labour Party, pointing to the grim toll these machines can take on poorer communities, wants £2. So do most anti gambling campaigners. Large parts of the media are on their side.

Not for nothing have these machines been characterised as the “crack cocaine of gambling”. Their critics point to research upon the brains of addicts. It would indicate that that is what they are. But a £2 limit would weigh on the Treasury’s bottom line. FOBTs are heavily taxed and provide a very nice boost for the nation’s threadbare coffers that a £2 limit would all but wipe out.

Treasury mandarins will also have read the reports predicting mass lay offs and betting shops closures. The £30 limit would ease some (but not all) of those concerns. I’d be very surprised if they weren’t calling their colleagues at DCMS the minute the commission’s recommendation dropped.

What the commission actually calls for is a maximum of £30 “or lower”. The City, however, didn’t paid much attention to the latter part of that statement. Nor will the Treasury have.

The point will have made been that to the DCMS that it now has cover to opt for something less onerous to the industry, and the nation’s finances. It remains open to debate whether that’s a good thing. But the bookies are smiling, and punters never like to see that.