Two days on from the out-of-the-blue announcement that British racing will strike on 10 September, the widespread media exposure the move has received may already be worth significantly more than the loss to sport from cancelling low-key meetings at Kempton, Lingfield, Carlisle and Uttoxeter. It will be an afternoon when most punters are looking 24 hours ahead to the St Leger meeting at Doncaster.
As a result, there is a raised awareness of the deep concerns about government plans to harmonise the duty rates for online betting and casino-style gaming products, which could, according to modelling commissioned by the British Horseracing Authority, cost the sport between £66m and £160m in annual income.
There will be further coverage on the day itself to add to the balance sheet, the races concerned will be restaged at other meetings to minimise the loss of media rights income and the degree of cooperation required between the BHA and racing’s two biggest racecourse ownership groups is also a positive for the sport.
The response of the main industry body, the Betting and Gaming Council, to the news was instructive, too. “Racing’s decision to reschedule fixtures was taken without consultation with betting operators, whose support for the funding of the sport is mission critical,” the BGC said on Sunday. “We are concerned that futile political gestures will only antagonise the government and frustrate punters, instead of delivering a solution to a shared challenge facing both racing and betting.”
This followed hot on the heels of a suggestion by Michael Dugher, the BGC’s chair, in a column in the Racing Post that “any increase in costs gets passed on not just to the sport, through reduced spend on sponsorship, but also punters. That might mean worse odds, fewer offers, less generous promotions.”
The same column also included perhaps the most absurd sentence to appear in the pages of the sport’s trade paper since Fred Done, the chair of BetFred, suggested that cutting the maximum stake on roulette machines in betting shops from £100 to £2 could force him to close his entire high-street estate.
“The idea that betting on horseracing is purely a game of ‘skill’ and not also a game of ‘chance’ is nonsense,” Dugher wrote. “How many punters back a horse because they like the name or the colours? If betting on horses were purely a game of skill, how is it that a 150-1 shot wins a Group 1 at Goodwood?”
Brighton 2.15 Twist Or Stick 2.45 Bee My Honey 3.15 Angel On High 3.45 Beautiful Dawn (nap) 4.15 Bear To Dream 4.45 Dandy G Boy
Kempton 2.30 Della Pace 3.00 Allegresse 3.30 Tronido 4.00 Tennessee Gold 4.30 Uzincso 5.05 Fort Augustus
Chepstow 5.30 Berlinetta 6.00 Queen Tamara 6.30 Savannah Smiles 7.00 You Are Everything 7.30 Jenni 8.00 Ravenglass
Wolverhampton 6.10 Hayynah 6.40 Sporting Light 7.10 Dream Illusion 7.40 Sam’s Hope 8.10 Glory Hyde (nb) 8.40 Team Player
The weasel-word here is “purely”, because as far as I am aware, no one in racing has ever, or would ever, claim that betting is “purely a game of skill”. Instead, skill is an essential element of the process. Every horse has its chance and its price and the skill lies in judging one against the other. It is the complete absence of skill in gaming that is one of the fundamental differences between the two.
York 1.50 Spring Is Sprung 2.25 Goodwood Galaxy (nb) 3.00 Carmers 3.35 Danon Decile 4.10 Dancing In Paris (nap) 4.45 Jumbeau 5.20 Temple Of Athena
Carlisle 2.05 Gwen John 2.40 Promise Time 3.15 Rosso Levanto 3.50 Count Palatine 4.25 Crystal Dagger 4.55 Tootsie
Worcester 4.50 Rocks Up Late 5.25 My Gift To You 5.55 Mikhailovich 6.30 Tamarind Bay 7.00 Just A Heartbeat 7.30 Rogue Mission 8.00 Orange Diamond
Kempton 5.15 Houdini Miss 5.50 Tierra Del Toro 6.20 Chapter 6.50 Royal Bodyguard 7.20 Zoffandia 7.50 Finalise 8.20 Valsharah 8.50 Silca Bay
Taken as a whole, the BGC’s response to the strike action is informative, because it should leave no one in racing with any lingering doubt that those traditional betting brands many still think of as “the bookies” are now just subsidiaries of global gambling operators, whose primary concern is the risk-free profits from fixed-margin gaming.
The BGC wants racing to argue for no change at all – ie 15% duty on betting and 21% on gaming – when that is the one thing that is almost certainly not going to happen. The government needs funds, the Treasury has already consulted on harmonisation and gambling revenue is a blindingly obvious target for a tax hike. As a result, and as the debate over gambling duty rolls on towards the autumn budget, the realistic best-case and worst-case scenarios for racing and the gambling industry are almost precisely opposed.
For racing, any harmonisation of duty, whatever the chosen rate, is the worst-case outcome, because it not only costs the sport revenue, but increases the incentive for operators to prioritise their gaming business in the longer term. The realistic best-case outcome, despite the sport’s calls to “Axe the Racing Tax” completely, is probably a small rise in betting duty – perhaps alongside possible reform of the Levy to ease some of the pain – and a much more significant hike in the rate for gaming, to reflect the increased risk of gambling-related harm.
The gambling industry would regard harmonisation at either 21% or 25% as a huge let-off. It is the thought of a possible rise in gaming duty – perhaps to 40% or more that they willingly pay to access gaming markets elsewhere – that is keeping their CEOs awake at night.
Racing’s strike will not tip the balance one way or the other, but it is a long way from being the “futile political gesture” the BGC would have you believe. And if that organisation’s chair thinks that a pacemaker getting loose on the lead in the Sussex Stakes means racing is little different from roulette, it is conceivably a sign they are starting to feel the heat.
