British horseracing will suffer ‘untold damage’ if planned gambling crackdown goes ahead, MPs warn

A PLANNED gambling crackdown will do untold damage to UK horse racing, ministers will be warned today.

MPs will use a Westminster debate to sound the alarm over proposed affordability checks on betting-dependent sectors.

PAA planned gambling crackdown will do untold damage to UK horse racing, ministers will be warned today[/caption]

GettyMatt Hancock said: ‘Current plans will do untold damage to Newmarket and the horseracing industry’[/caption]

PAGeorge Freeman said: ‘Horseracing is as integral to our national story as the pub, the pie and Parliament’[/caption]

A backlash has been growing since the Government announced laws to collect the financial data of punters who lose as little as £125 a month or £500 a year.

Racing bosses say it could mean a £50million funding loss for the industry.

Analysis suggests that could put many of the 85,000 jobs in stables and elsewhere at risk.

MP Matt Hancock, whose Suffolk constituency includes Newmarket, said: “Whilst I fully support the effort to tackle problem gambling, it would be a huge mistake to do this.

“Current plans will do untold damage to Newmarket and the horseracing industry.”

Former Minister George Freeman said affordability checks are “a sledgehammer to crack a nut in terms of the gambling problem”.

He said: “Horseracing is as integral to our national story as the pub, the pie and Parliament.

“It’s key to our heritage, rural & national economy and global soft power.

Jockey Club chief Nevin Truesdale says racing relies on income from betting levies.

He claims the checks “would fail to recognise an individual’s personal circumstances”.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: “These are light-touch, frictionless checks to protect people from potentially life-changing losses.”

Checks are mad gamble

By Matt Chapman, Sun racing expert

IMAGINE a government that decides how you can spend your hard-earned cash. You wouldn’t stand for it.

But while we wait for a White Paper on gambling, that scenario is more real than many might imagine.

And it’s why a debate in Parliament today — triggered by a petition with over 100,000 signatures — is one of the most important ever held in Westminster.

The debate is billed to be about affordability checks to protect people from gambling online with money they cannot afford to lose.

But it’s actually about much more than that.

If these checks come in, the Government is essentially saying it will decide how people can spend their money.

An MP’s job should always be to defend your liberty to spend your cash how you like.

People who don’t gamble struggle to understand the industry.

The perception for many is that all gambling is bad. But it’s crazy to think like that.

You don’t become a degenerate gambler by having a bet. Or by buying a lottery ticket.

Many of those who bet on horses, football or greyhound racing put considerable time into their selections.

They should be considered games of skill.

Regulation needs to be tightened up via bookmakers’ compliance teams.

Affordability checks are not the way to do it.