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from there to racing post
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of the major news that broke last night, which British racing will go on strike for a day next month in protest against the Racing Tax.
In case you missed it, it emerged all four meetings that were due to take place on Wednesday, September 10 at Lingfield, Carlisle, Uttoxeter and Kempton have been rescheduled, leaving a blank day in Britain.
VF x
Instead, racing will host a major campaign event in Westminster where senior leaders will be joined by owners, trainers and jockeys to highlight the threat of the Treasury’s proposal on an industry which is worth £4.1 billion to the UK economy.
Join us for our live coverage of this huge story throughout the day. You can also get in touch with us at liveblog@racingpost.com.
Will achieve absolutely nothing.
The government are putting up taxes somewhere. And if it’s a choice between entain having their profits cut marginally from the hundreds of millions it currently is or having elderly people have their winter fuel allowance cut, I know what I’m happiest with.
Bloody stupid idea, talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highways1 day without racing, what will we do with ourselves
Why not do it on Champions Day?
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Racing, the sport that cries wolf.
Would be much better to keep quiet about this possible betting duty change, rather stupid to keep referring to it as a ‘racing tax’.
Because the arguments they’re deploying this time won’t sound so convincing when the Treasury comes for the VAT concessions enjoyed by ‘millionaire owners’, as I’m sure the government will label them.
Better not to prod a sleeping tiger.
My initial view is that this strike will achieve absolutely nothing, it just appears that ‘racing’ is throwing its toys out of the pram. How exactly do the organisers think it will change government thinking?
The majority of uninformed opinion on the topic (i.e. those who don’t follow racing, be they in government, civil service, or just citizens) is that this is a good idea that will save vulnerable people from the evils of gambling. We know that’s rubbish but we are dealing with zealots, be they 1% zealot or 100% lunatic fringe. No U.K. racing for Sep 10th is not going to alter the fixed ideological positions of those who in their ignorance are supportive of the changes to the tax structure. We don’t have a lobby as in the Winter Fuel debacle, or the Farmer’s IHT row.
Anyway there’s a card in Ireland, at Cork, which might present better opportunities than any of the three cards scrapped as a result of the strike. And if they really want to strike then I suggest they do it every year on Shergar Cup day.
The Government don’t particularly give a flying ‘you know what’ about racing (or want to know enough about the sport to understand what the issue with the impact of the Racing Tax will be) so I very much doubt this move will even come close to having the impact the powers that be are thinking/hoping that it will.
They will probably see it as a publicity stunt and that is assuming that the move even registers with the people within Government that it really needs to.
Will anyone outside racing notice? Most stable staff will probably welcome a quiet day.
Unless it’s a slow news day next month, I doubt if it will make the main news bulletins.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
If what was said on ‘Luck On Sunday’ is true then they are just going to reschedule the fixtures from that day anyway. So all we have then is a day without racing, which some would argue isn’t a bad thing anyway…, and nobody in the Government. Apart from which is typical that horse racing ties itself in knots about the matter before coming up with ‘action’ that’s likely to be ineffectual.
I understand Dawn Butler is leading a campaign to cut the amount of gambling outlets on the street. Wouldn’t have much effect on horse racing anyway as betting shops are not exactly heavily populated these days. That aside, remove gambling outlets from ‘the High Street’ results in the same money going either online or to illegal gamlbing dens. Someone can piss away thousands on the National Lottery every week and no one would bat an eyelid because that ‘goes to good causes’. Still gambling though, innit?
The proposal, as I understand it, is to up betting duty on racing from 15% to 21%, thereby equalising it with the duty paid on online ‘games of chance’. I’m not at all clear what duty is paid on ‘not games of chance’ other than racing, such as football. Anyone know?
If it’s currently 15% and there’s no plan to increase the duty on these to 21% too, then I could have a degree of sympathy with racing. If it’s equalization across the board then tough titty, as I’m with Tizzards Cider’s post above
The current UK Racing mega-bubble is, I reckon, untenable in anything more than the short-to-medium term and will burst regardless of any fiddling around with betting duty
Enjoy the ‘dark day’: time nicely freed-up to swot-up on the Leger Meeting
I see absolutely no point in doing this all they are doing is shifting the meetings to another date, utterly pointless.
The more I know the less I understand.
Drone,
My understanding, which isn’t guaranteed to be accurate, is that current 15% rate applies to all online and shop sports betting. Betting firms also pay the Levy on top of that 15% and that only applies to racing bets.
I found this interesting and explanatory blog about the proposed changes:
And this info on the government site:
One thing I learned from that site, that I didn’t know for sure:
“If you only take on-course bets, you do not need to pay GBD or tell HMRC about your business.”
Good news is Nicky Henderson is in favour of the strike
that means on September 10th we won’t get his daily spill of how well Constitution Hill looksGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
I’m a bit confused as to why they think revenue will drop because the odds offered will be worse, punters will stake less or not at all (get that bit), but profits would remain the same. How can that be? I would have thought but perhaps I’m wrong the profit is largely from losing bets? Especially since I suspect the punters who would vote with their feet would be the saavy ones who are winning more and arent very profitable as customers anyway. The mug punters would bet with a 200% overround probably.
Regarding the bit about other sports. As far as I know betting companies dont pay a levy on football for example. Dont pay to show live matches on their site or apps either like they do with racing. Racing is an expensive product for the bookies
If every 15% overround is turned into a 21% overround wouldn’t that compensate the tax rise for the bookies? And your daily bookie customer wouldn’t take notice.
By the way, can the SP be somehow “manipulated”? I’m not talking about the Yellow Sam coup…Thanks for those links APR, particularly the first one: the comments after it are well worth reading too
It really just emphasises how complex a matter taxation is and how dogmatically forecasting how much revenue will be raised by increasing rates is essentially a fool’s game
“If you only take on-course bets, you do not need to pay GBD or tell HMRC about your business.”
I didn’t know that either. It has similarities to pre-2001 when there was no punter-imposed on-course betting tax but 10% off-course
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