Surviving £100 affordability check is not such a long shot

Hopes rise that racing might avoid financial meltdown from proposed gambling clampdown

Should the Gambling Commission recommend that the Government brings in an affordability check of £100 per month in its forthcoming review of the Gambling Act, there have been fears it could lead to a near-£100million loss in income for racing.

Research by the Racecourse Media Group has shown that 56 per cent of racing punters would stop betting, rather than send betting operators their payslips. This could cost racing £42 million, in terms of Levy, and £44million in media rights.

However, it is starting to become clear that the Social Market Foundation, which came up with the £100 limit, never intended racing to be caught in its crossfire. Its target was the online casino and arcade games. It has also said it never intended a means test as intrusive as sending payslips, tax returns and bank statements. There is an alternative method which applies an algorithm to data a bookmaker holds on clients.

The Social Market Foundation is a key adviser to the allparty Parliamentary Group for Gambling Related Harm.

When Martin Cruddace, chief executive of ARC racecourses, and Colin Hord, of the Horserace Bettors Forum, attended the APPG last week, its chairman, the Labour MP Carolyn Harris, had some interesting things to say to them.

“The APPG has never criticised the horse-racing industry – ever,” she said.

“In fact, this APPG has never talked about the horseracing industry ever. It’s been one of those activities within the gambling world which has never been brought to my attention as a sector which is problematic.”

She added: “I’ve never met a gambler, yet, whose problem has been horse racing. That’s not to say people have no problem, but I’ve never met one and I’ve met a lot of problem gamblers.”

Harris also said it was a missed step not having had earlier communication.

“I think you would better understand where we were coming from and we would better understand the fact that you want to protect the horse-racing industry, which I have the utmost respect for,” she said.

Requesting further meetings, she suggested they might come up with a compromise and ideas of how the two sides might work together more. “There is no need for us to be adversarial on this,” she concluded.

Cruddace has since maintained a constructive dialogue with Harris and the Social Market Foundation and, as a result, received assurances as to the intended ambit of the “interventions” it is seeking in terms of evidence of income.

Given it is the principled objection of the majority of racing punters to sharing detailed, sensitive financial data, as opposed to silent behind-the-scenes checks, it just may be that racing can get back to the not insignificant job of emerging in health from the current crisis rather than overly concern itself with this new one.