As is often the case when a new leader takes power, industries wonder what – if anything – will be the impact on them. For British horse racing, there is the hope that the newly minted Prime Minister Andy Burnham will be a friend in power, but there are also fears that the government ends up hurting the industry, even when the intentions are good.
One of the problems, of course, is that Burnham is the 7th Prime Minister of the last decade. Each new incumbent to the office will have a different focus, and we have yet to see whether Burnham will have horse racing anywhere high up the agenda. The good news for those who want to see continuity is that Lisa Nandy is retained as Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The bad news is that not everyone in racing agrees with Nandy’s plans and direction of travel.
A fight to bring gambling laws up to date
So, what are the issues facing the sector? Above all, perhaps, is the overhaul of the 2005 Gambling Act introduced by the then-Labour Government under Tony Blair. The Act was meant to bring UK gambling laws into the 21st century, but it largely failed to anticipate the ubiquitous influence of the internet and smartphones. It basically continued to frame gambling as something done in-person.
Of course, it is still done in-person, but we also live in an era where online slot games are much more prevalent than physical machines. And in terms of racing, visiting your local bookie is now less common than placing a bet with an online operator, perhaps one that is located offshore.
The Guardian’s excellent racing columnist Greg Wood honed in on two main areas of concern for racing and the Burnham Government. One was the advent of affordability checks for online punters, and the other was the issue of gambling sponsorship. Both have become hot-button topics for the industry to wrestle with.
Affordability checks could backfire
The problems lie in how far the government takes these issues. The affordability checks, for example, are widely seen as a double-edged sword. Most stakeholders are in agreement that some kind of safety net is needed to help those overspending on betting, but it also runs the risk of turning off responsible – and successful – horse racing bettors. The problem, too, is that draconian affordability checks could also lead to pushing British punters to unregulated and unlicensed platforms.
Gambling advertising and sponsorship is also on the agenda, and again it is proving divisive. Horse racing needs sponsorship from gambling firms – that is clear – yet there is also an indication from Nandy that the government wants to tackle the sheer volume of gambling advertising around sports events, especially on television. If you watch a high-profile Premier League soccer match, for instance, it does feel like overkill when seeing how many gambling adverts appear throughout the broadcast. The racing industry will hope that a balance can be struck.
Perhaps the biggest positive for the racing industry is that the Labour Government seems to believe that racing should be treated differently to other sports, and particularly when it comes to gambling taxation. The successful “Axe the Racing Tax” campaign, for instance, proved that the government is willing to listen on these issues.
For now, though, it’s really a waiting game. Burnham is barely through the door at No.10 Downing Street, and while Nandy may pursue some of her agenda already set under previous PM Keir Starmer, a new boss may reset some of her plans.
