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Racing should not get an exemption from planned gambling financial risk checks it finds troublesome for its bettors, officials have said.
A gambling chief executive and a former chief executive had no enthusiasm for a racing industry campaign to get a carve-out for racing from planned affordability checks on players on the grounds that betting on horses involves more “skill and judgement” than slots play.
“It’s naïve to think there aren’t problem gamblers who bet significant sums on racing,” said Richard Flint, former chairman and chief executive of Sky Bet.
“I’ve met a lot of problem gamblers, and most of them got into difficulties through racing” bets, he said.
Betfred CEO Joanne Whittaker said exempting racing from financial risk checks would be technically problematic and otherwise “wrong”.
“We don’t know what the customer is going to use their deposit for,” she said.
The panel was speaking at a CMS law firm conference on gambling in London on Wednesday (June 19), with the question posed by panel moderator David Zeffman.
The Racing Post betting publication led a months-long campaign seeking a carve-out for racing bettors from affordability checks, calling them “inappropriate and indiscriminatory”, as well as potentially a big financial hit for the heavily betting-supported sport.
The matter was debated in parliament in February after a Jockey Club petition drew 100,000 signatures.
In July 2023, Betfred agreed to pay £3.25m as part of a settlement over anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures in its shops in 2021 and 2022, following a £2.9m September 2022 penalty for the same category of failures from October 2019 to December 2020.
Whittaker assumed the CEO role in April 2021 from founder Fred Done.
The once-inflammatory issue has become somewhat muted with the Gambling Commission planning “light-touch” financial vulnerability checks to take effect from August 30, with a pilot programme for more intensive financial risk assessments for higher-spending players launching in conjunction with an industry code.
Elsewhere, the Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) has also rolled out plans to introduce a two-tier system of affordability checks from October 1.
Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes joked that he would “absolutely not” be commenting on the issue of affordability and racing.
He limited his remarks to pointing out there are differences in problem gambling rates between slots and race bets.
In general, slots are considered to be considerably more addictive than sports bets.
Government departments are meant to avoid commenting on policy in the run-up once an election date has been set.
With an election set for July 4, the strongly favoured Labour party has said that it “will work with the industry on how to ensure responsible gambling”, and is “committed to reducing gambling-related harm”.
Rhodes did say that the commission is spending more time examining B2B companies, without giving specifics.
“The commission is broadening the way it looks at things,” he said.
Most of the non-governmental panel agreed they did not want to see any changes in the planned white paper unveiled in April by the current Conservative government, whether positive or negative for the industry.
“It’s been hanging over our heads for so long, we just need to crack on,” Whittaker said. “I just want to be put out of the misery.”
