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I was going to say Sean Trivass’s attitude sounds a bit defeatist but maybe he is being realistic. The prevailing opinion across the whole political establishment is now firmly hostile to betting.
The same political establishment which pissed billions of pounds up against the wall in a futile attempt to stop a virus spreading, including billions disappearing into the accounts of fraudsters and organised crime via furlough.
None of that lot look like they will face any consequences for putting a wrecking ball through the public finances. But we are going to have what should be our private finances scrutinised if we lose £1.37 a day.
“Where are the daily articles about bookmakers restricting winning punters to pennies? To me this is the real issue not punters who are losing heavily being asked to provide proof they are betting within their means.”
I repeat
Be interesting to know where betting stands in the table of “addictions”. I suspect it is way behind smoking, alcohol and the various illegal substances people obtain. I guarantee on the whole these other addictions cost far more to the addict than betting, when I smoked I spent £2k+ every year, my betting losses are nowhere near that.
The things I want most in life are the things that I can't win.
“The prevailing opinion across the whole political establishment is now firmly hostile to betting”.
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Was it ever anything different?
I think it has a lot to do with religion.
Parliament has far more religious people on those benches than in the wider general public as a whole. Believe I am right in saying, Christianity preaches against gambling, Islam bans it outright and Judaism is particularly against compulsive gambling and professional gambling… They’re all going to see things only one way. The main man himself, the Prime Minister’s Hindu religion also says “we should never gamble”.We need more atheists in Parliament.
Value Is Everything“Be interesting to know where betting stands in the table of “addictions”. I suspect it is way behind smoking, alcohol and the various illegal substances people obtain. I guarantee on the whole these other addictions cost far more to the addict than betting, when I smoked I spent £2k+ every year, my betting losses are nowhere near that.”
It is fair to say you were not an addict.Comments from the Jockey Club CEO reported in the Post today:
“Talking to TalkSport’s Lee McKenzie on Friday, Truesdale said the petition was a key part of the wider lobbying effort designed to “keep up the momentum” against the introduction of affordability checks as envisaged by the Gambling Commission and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.”
“Truesdale said: “We think government will take notice of this. They have to.”
Difficult to imagine someone more out of touch with reality. Affordability checks are not something that might be introduced after legislation has been passed, they’re already happening!
And persuading the current government is both irrelevant and pointless. Irrelevant because it’s the out of control Gambling Commission that is setting the pace. Pointless because this government will have been replaced before any legislation can be debated and put into place.
Truesdale would be better employed thinking about how the JC tracks are going to replace the money they’ll no longer be getting from the Levy/media rights as betting turnover declines.
Ed on ITV asking people to sign the petition.
Shame he didn’t really explain much about why though.Value Is EverythingMost bookmaker profits whizz off to tax havens like Gibraltar, Malta, Monaco, etc anyway, I’d say that this money remaining in the UK economy is surely a good thing?
Related to my other thread, reduce gate prices, incentivise going to the track and then racing can make a few quid for its self rather than funding tax avoiding bookies20k signatures in two days.
The things I want most in life are the things that I can't win.
Just having a look round, it’s been a few weeks since I last posted on here.
I see the petition currently stands at 85,473 signatures, be interesting to see if that number goes up significantly this weekend.Just idly checking – I notice the number of signatures now stands at a smidge under 99,500, so it looks like the 100k target will be achieved. The pace to this point hasn’t exactly been meteoric though. Perhaps general public lack of awareness (or even apathy) is to be expected. But comparing this with the shrieks of “over 200,000 of you have already entered the ITV7”, as Ed Chamberlin gushes each Saturday, it’s a little disappointing too.
Following the petition to stop the implementation of betting affordability/financial risk checks , Parliament will debate the petition on Monday February 26th .
So the pointless petition reached the 100K target, and begat a pointless debate, in which the usual suspects (MPs with racing interests in their constituency) said the expected things.
Then the relevant minister stood up and read out a pre-prepared statement, almost certainly written by one his civil servants, which totally ignored everything said in the previous two and half hours.
Now the MPs are talking about getting a meeting with the PM. And that’s pointless as he won’t be PM by the end of the year and there’s no chance that he’d make this a priority in the run-up to an election.
Nor is there any chance that a Labour goverment would do anything to tone down the actions of the un-elected commissioners at the Gambling Commission. Indeed, I would expect that government to be looking at cancelling the VAT concessions made available to racing, which would increase owners costs by 20% overnight. The return of a betting tax would be no surprise either.
Racing will survive, it always has, but probably on a smaller scale.
This is a quite informative link to see where this discussion started:
Kenny Alexander, former Chief Executive, GVC (Ladbrokes etc now Entain) over 4 years ago discussing affordability checks.
Is this where the concept of intrusive affordability checks using banking data was born?
Full Lords hearing video is, frankly, astonishing 👇… pic.twitter.com/FYBOcZ9J2L
— Chris Fawcett (@chrisgambler247) March 1, 2024
Go in the full video to 16:43:00 in case you want to listen to Kenny Alexander.
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