Gambling Commission's reluctance to publish affordability survey results should be concerning to all

Welcome to the first in a new weekly series On The Money, in which industry editor Bill Barber gives his take on some of the key stories from the racing and betting world. This week's column is free to read for all before becoming an exclusive feature for Racing Post Members' Club subscribers moving forward.

It may not have escaped your attention that the Gambling Commission has been in the news rather a lot in recent days.

The industry regulator has been across television, newspapers and social media for days as the scandal about political betting has raged.

However, another story involving the Gambling Commission, raised first in these pages last week, is perhaps of greater importance for British racing and could have greater ramifications.

Thanks to a freedom of information request made by industry analysts Regulus Partners, the results of a "short survey" carried out by the Gambling Commission on affordability checks more than three years ago have finally come to light. 

The results set out the views of the 12,000 people who responded to the survey, which closed in February 2021 but which the Gambling Commission had decided not to publish, for reasons best known to themselves.

Readers of the Racing Post will not be surprised by the results.

To take just a few examples, when asked if "gambling businesses should be required to assess if gambling is affordable", 9,411 of the 12,124 responses, or 77.62 per cent, said no.

Only 14 per cent of respondents said they would provide information if asked for it by operators to assess whether their gambling was affordable, in contrast to the 42 per cent who said they would refuse.

The results laid bare the opposition from punters to the concept of such checks and being asked to provide personal information to prove they could afford their level of gambling.

Yet the Gambling Commission did not see fit to release the information even when it said it would.

This was not just a matter which interested a handful of observers of the issue and of the gambling industry more generally.

Two years ago Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes was questioned by MPs about the non-appearance of the results of both the survey and the consultation and call for evidence it ran alongside.

Julian Knight MP, the then chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, told Rhodes that affordability checks were of "great public interest," adding: "It seems to be very strange that this has not been made publicly available."

Knight also said: "We have a right to see it as well and so does the general public, because we pay for you."

Rhodes, who had joined the commission after the consultation and survey had closed, told the committee that it had been agreed with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that the issues around affordability checks were something for the government's white paper and that the work had been "wrapped" into that.

Andrew Rhodes: had been pressed on the results of the survey by MPs two years ago

Knight continued to press Rhodes on the matter, arguing the subject needed wider scrutiny than for it "just to be sort of handed covertly to officials at DCMS". He added: "That seems very strange and actually frankly an approach lacking in transparency."

Despite those comments, the Gambling Commission continued to keep the results under wraps.

Last year Regulus requested disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act but the commission turned down the request, saying there was no public interest in releasing the information at that point and it would be published in due course. The commission said "the necessary preparation and administration involved" was an issue with its publication.

In February this year, Rhodes spoke at the Betting and Gaming Council's annual meeting when he told the audience that it would not only be publishing the full responses to the consultation it ran on financial risk checks last summer but also "the call for evidence from a number of years ago on the issue of affordability checks". I remember that very clearly because Rhodes broke off from his speech to tell me to "write that down".

Yet when that consultation response was eventually published in May, it was not accompanied by the results of the exercise which closed in 2021.

Instead, the Gambling Commission published a summary which dealt with responses in only broad terms.

The summary said the responses contained "a wide range of views" but did not detail the weight of opinion behind those views.

So, for example, while the summary acknowledged that individual respondents "shared their disapproval of checks overall", it also said that "some respondents from organisations (such as charities and/or non-profits) agreed with thresholds of ‘around £100’", at which checks should take place.

As has been mentioned, 9,411 responses to the survey said operators should not be required to assess affordability. The number of responses for those who agreed with affordability checks taking place at a loss of more than £100 a month was 355.

It is hard not to be concerned about the lack of transparency from the Gambling Commission about this whole exercise.

The results from the 2021 short survey and the opposition to affordability checks should have played a part in the public debate around the white paper and the subsequent consultation on financial risk checks which took place last summer. 

It is not the only example of the Gambling Commission not including relevant information from this process either. A survey of customer attitudes conducted by market research firm 2CV for the Gambling Commission in 2019 was also missing from the 2023 consultation document.

As for the results released last week, it is difficult to see how their publication was not in the public interest and one would not need to be a hardened cynic to think that the Gambling Commission decided not to publish the results because they were inconvenient.

That does not bode well for the future.

Flat racing the test for Premier project

The first quarter report released by the BHA last week on the targets set for Premier racing and the current two-year trial of fixture reforms was not exactly replete with good news.

The 5.9 per cent reduction in betting turnover on British horseracing put some flesh on the bones of the warnings the Levy Board has been making for some time about the current landscape.

The reaction of many, as it often is with any attempts at innovation, will be to say 'I told you so' and predict the experiment's inevitable failure.

It is, however, genuinely too early to make too many hard and fast deductions from this set of figures.

The idea for Premier racing stemmed from work done by a group of industry figures headed by former BHB chairman Peter Savill, who identified the problems facing British racing as the loss of major owners, a drain of equine talent abroad and falling field sizes.

However, the report produced by Savill's group concentrated almost exclusively on the Flat and the issues facing that code.

Even before Premier racing started this year, Arena Racing Company chief executive Martin Cruddace said he believed its next iteration should focus on "high-quality Flat racing".

That was because of the international aspect of Flat racing, something jump racing does not possess, certainly not among punters outside Europe.

It would therefore make sense to wait to see how Premier racing has performed over the quarter just gone and the three months about to come before writing the idea off.

Bill's bullets

No mention of racing in call for advertising curbs

Gambling advertising is an area which looks ripe for revisiting by a new Labour government. That, and the current football European Championship, mean it is no surprise the charity GambleAware chose last week to publish a new report on gambling marketing.

Among the recommendations were a pre-watershed ban on all broadcast gambling advertising and a ban on gambling marketing at sports events.

There was no mention of a carve-out for horseracing, as has been included in other, similar reports.

Northern Ireland gambling regulation claimed to be a "Wild West"

Northern Ireland is a “Wild West” and is falling behind compared to the rest of the UK and to Ireland when it comes to gambling reform, according to a new report published last week.

The Northern Ireland Assembly All Party Group on Reducing Harm Related to Gambling claimed the "overwhelming weight of evidence" shows that gambling is a "significant public health issue in NI, and calls for a public health approach similar to that used for alcohol and tobacco".

Arc and RMG team up

There is more evidence that the once decidedly chilly relations between Arena Racing Company and Racecourse Media Group have warmed up considerably.

The two major UK media rights holders have teamed up with Australian gambling giant Tabcorp and US group 1/ST to form what has been described as a "strategic alliance" to distribute content across international markets.

Read these next:

So many positions to be filled within British racing's leadership - and so few suitable people to fill them 

Choice of new Jockey Club chief is crucial for racing - and here are some of the key qualities they'll need 

Election came at just the wrong time for racing - and life is set to become more complicated afterwards 

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