No one can say they weren’t warned. For years, bookmakers, punters and the horse racing industry have tried to explain, with increasing desperation, why affordability checks are dangerous and unworkable. At every turn, the Gambling Commission has covered its ears. This week it confirmed it will push ahead with intrusive financial checks on people simply trying to have a bet. This unelected, non-departmental regulator, which currently doesn’t even have a chairman or a chief executive, is telling us how we can spend our money. Naturally, Labour’s Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross welcomed the news.
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Now it’s time to face the consequences: a rush of gamblers to the black market, where they will pay no tax and where there is no safeguarding in place, and an estimated £250m hole in racing’s finances. It is a strange, sorry act of selfharm.
