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In the Racing Post, Labour politician Tom Watson advocates the possibility of stake limits being applied to horse racing and sports bets. Is this chap living in la la land because the biggest problem many sports punters have is getting a reasonable bet on in the first place. How many punters have received popups limiting their bet requests to pennies? On random number generated gambling like slots, casinos, games, lotteries etc fill yer boots, you can have as much as you want. If they’re prepared to advertise prices on any sports event, surely they should be prepared to accept a certain minimum liability or don’t display prices in the first place.
I could not believe this when I read it !! It is insanity and punters should be allowed to have as much on as they like. It is another “Nanny State” job and for God’s sake can’t people take responsibility for their own actions.
Can you imagine people trying to get a hundred quid on a horse and being told that it exceeds the limit of £20?
Would they be allowed to have twenty quid on five times to circumvent the problem?Absolutely crackers !!
“While limits were spoken of more in the context of those which will apply to FOBTs from April 1 and how that might translate to online equivalents, they could be applied to horseracing and sports betting should that be deemed appropriate.”
Hmm…”could”. Sounds like this is being aimed at similarly addictive online games of chance to me. Limiting stakes on racing/sports would be obviously ludicrous as one man’s high stake can be 50p whilst another’s can be £50k.
The amount of enquiry into millions of people’s private finances to establish personal limits would be immense, immoral and quite probably illegal as it stands.
But The Labour Party is in the process of being totally hijacked by the Trotskyite hard left and controlling people’s lives is a key part of that credo, so were they to ever get to power, well never say never I suppose…
Mike
“… the Trotskyite hard left and controlling people’s lives is a key part of that credo…”
Whereas the hard right, as embodied by the Conservative Party, is all about freedom of choice: shall I use the food bank today, or not?
I have no idea what the Conservative Party is ‘all about’ (and neither do they at present, it seems).
Not that it has any relevance to this issue, which is a mooted policy by the Labour Party, proffered by the Labour Party’s deputy leader.
Mike
Labour jumping on the bandwagon after the Tories hit the bookies with FOBT limits. Whatever you can do we can do better.
In a world where newspapers and news services are desperately getting left behind it sounds like a piece of gossip to me.
“Labour would introduce stake limits on online gambling products if the evidence demands it”
Mmm, might strengthen the on-course market then…
There is a bit of a warning for racing (and other sports) here, namely to differentiate their product – a largely non-addictive game of skill – with that of the random games of highly-addictive chance that the bookmakers have used to feather their nests. I believe Mr Watson’s proposals generally refer to the latter but one can never be sure.
The sole function of FOBTs is to strip players mechanically of their money. I’m of the firm belief that almost nobody enjoys playing them, people are simply addicted. They require no skill, talent or knowledge to engage in. It would therefore not be unreasonable to cap the stakes on their online equivalents in my view.
However, politicians of all stripes are generally not over-endowed with intelligence and would comfortably fall off the end of Dunning Kruger charts. For them, all gambling is basically the same, so it should be a priority for racing that the obvious difference needs to be repeatedly hammered home to them.
Mike
Good luck to racing with that hammering home of the difference –
You see, sir, a pound is worth a length, but not in all cases, the farther they go we need to reduce that, though by how much differs depending on who is handicapping. And you need to know that form students pay special attention to the going, which is the state of the ground a la how much moisture is in there. Then we have horses who prefer running clockwise to anti-clockwise . . .
Quite a few racing people and journalists supported the anti-FOBT campaign and celebrated its success. I wonder if they ever considered the possibility that one of the consequences was the removal of the finger from the dyke. Who will plug that hole now that campaigners have the perfect template – roll out as many human misery stories as you can find and the emotional, outraged electorate will do the rest?
This is not a comment on the rights and wrongs of FOBTs. I can’t stand them and there’s no question they have ruined many lives. But you cannot fix the subjects of addiction by banning the current object of their addiction. What you can do though is make yourself highly popular by going with the emotions of the people rather than the facts and logic of the matter at hand.
“Quite a few racing people and journalists supported the anti-FOBT campaign and celebrated its success. I wonder if they ever considered the possibility that one of the consequences was the removal of the finger from the dyke. Who will plug that hole now that campaigners have the perfect template – roll out as many human misery stories as you can find and the emotional, outraged electorate will do the rest?”.
Absolutely spot on, Steeplechasing could hardly argue better. I should add Labour exists for the sole purpose of controlling other people’s lives, how else can one achieve a utopian society with imperfect humans? (Which is their aim, and the most fundamental flaw in the vision). It should only be expected, that once precedent (ie FOBT’s) had been set, the likes of Tom Watson would be jumping around with glee with the opportunity to moralise and lecture everybody else. Unlike Betlarge, I wouldn’t be keen to make too much of a distinction between the hard left and the soft left of Labour, they are both as bad as each other (main disagreements are in strategy, not intent). I won’t mention the Conservative party since I’d be here until Christmas criticising that trainwreck.
Thankfully, time is finite and I imagine Watson will have bigger fish to fry if graduating to government. As has been mentioned, I’m sure they will mainly focus on games of chance. However, racing’s authorities need to make it abundantly clear that they should not be tarnished by association. Whether the BHA are capable of achieving this or indeed anything other than vague signs of appeasement (on the whip and other issues) remains to be seen, I have strong doubts myself.
Sorry for the rant (and I’m aware the article wasn’t quite as alarming as the headline), but stuff like this makes my blood boil.
“Good luck to racing with that hammering home of the difference –
You see, sir, a pound is worth a length, but not in all cases, the farther they go we need to reduce that, though by how much differs depending on who is handicapping. And you need to know that form students pay special attention to the going, which is the state of the ground a la how much moisture is in there. Then we have horses who prefer running clockwise to anti-clockwise . . .”
This is a total non-sequitur. I think there is a world of difference between unnecessarily describing the minutiae of form-study to someone and explaining the basic idea that betting on racing & sports is skill-based, FOBTs aren’t.
As an aside, I remember hearing a couple of members of the House Of Lords saying how “the punters seem to enjoy these machines” a few months ago. Ridiculous of course because that’s the very last thing they do.
How many protests from punters have there been against the new £2 limit?
Mike
Some excellent points mentioned above. You read in the media that some idiot has stolen x amount from their employer and gambled it on FOBT’s or online ‘random number generators’ and then everyone who would rather bet than ‘gamble’ is tarnished with the same brush. ‘I couldn’t control myself and became addicted’ they bleat, and then along come some do-gooding ignorant politicians of whatever hue and attempt to equate this type of gambling with betting on sports, which are two completely different things. Form study requires discipline, analysis, dedication and self control, something altogether lacking with random numbers players.
It is indeed skill-based for the thoughtful punter, Mike, but you’ll have been in plenty betting shops where people are backing, grey horses or jockeys’ colours or one with the name of their favourite uncle etc.
The point I was making on the nitty gritty of form study was as a comparison to the charts rolled out and the reams of figures by the betting industry showing that 92% (or whatever it was) of FOBT players had no addiction (therefore how could the machines be addictive for every player?) and the Gambling Commission figures showing that 95%+ of gamblers across all products had no addiction problem. There was plenty of nitty gritty produced in defence but how much did you see of it in the media? Less than zilch.
Same will apply here if this gathers any speed. We say ‘skill based’ and the papers roll out a punter whose life has been ruined by backing every favourite for £100 a time having never looked a racing paper. Extreme, you might say and I say just wait and watch.
You appear to have a very low opinion of the population when it comes to general intelligence, Joe. Their apparently unable to distinguish facts and logic from (non existent) newspaper hate campaigns, is what I interpret from your post.
Its a wonder the UK ever became such a relatively advanced society, considering the power newspaper editors you seemingly think, hold over it’s citizens.
Tabloids were full of racing pullouts and bookmaker adverts the last time I looked, probably a good source of income for them. The bottom line and all that.
I’ll lay you 100/1 there will be no limits imposed on games of skill in the UK in my lifetime (I’m 48 now).
Tom who?
Cav, it’s not that they’re unable to distinguish, it’s the same problem we’ve debated before – it’s that the media do not present an even-handed case – there are no facts for them to digest and evaluate because – surprise, surprise – newspaper editors prefer the headline FAMILY OF SEVEN THROWN ONTO THE STREETS DUE TO FATHER’S GAMBLING HABIT, to, FIGURES SHOW THAT BETTING ON HORSES CAUSES ALMOST NO TROUBLE AT ALL.
As to that 100/1, given the difference in our age, neither of us would be at all likely to collect!
Take your point about the headlines, although the way things seem to be going, the population at large are paying less and less attention to them, and newspapers in general. Trump, Brexit, Corbyn etc…
Anyway, whether Cav wants to have a score, a pony or a monkey on the 5:10 at Wolves, is about priority 250 in most households I should think.
Be shocked if it happened.
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