'The sport we love is being targeted by people who have no understanding or concept of racing or betting'

I feel strongly that the sport a lot of us love is being targeted by people who have no understanding or concept of horseracing or the mentality of betting.

I have been a racing enthusiast for more than 38 years and have frequented many a Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot, with many smaller meetings in between.

I love betting too. It is the lifeblood of the sport. This, I feel, is not grasped by people ­unfamiliar with the game.

Take away people’s right to place a wager and you will end up losing punters, like me, who bring lots of money into the sport.

I place bets, pay to go racing, stay in hotels and travel abroad (I have attended meetings in Canada and France). If I am put in a position where I have to show bank account details or have a hand-holding conversation like I once had with Betfair then I will walk away.

I can invest money on the financial markets at will with no checks on whether I can afford it or not. Money is liquid and it will flow into other areas if restrictions like these are – implemented on our sport.

I empathise with anyone who has addiction problems, and more targeted help should be given to ­individuals who are problem gamblers. But these proposed ­restrictions target 100 per cent of the betting public. How can that be the right way of looking at or solving the problem?

Racing has been there for me through some of the darkest times and now the powers that be are taking the sport away from the people who matter the most.

Heavily reduced punting will lead to heavily reduced attendances, which will lead to heavily reduced sponsorship/advertising, etc. The big battle of the day for me is the fight between centralised ­decision-making and decentralised democracy.

Racing is in imminent danger of being too heavily regulated. This will lead to the strangulation of the sport, which has already started. I just hope it’s not too late to avert disaster.

Michael Driscoll

How to respond to the Gambling Commission consultation: Views can be provided at this page. After completing the introductory questions, select 'Remote gambling: financial vulnerability and financial risk' from the 'Consultations contents page'. You may choose to answer as many or as few questions as you wish. Further Racing Post guidance on responding to the consultation can be found here.

They have no concept

I used to have a bet pretty much every day from my teens until starting work with the then BHB in 2000. Then after not betting on the horses for 20 years, I started again upon retirement.

Around 30 years ago I would have been regarded as a fairly heavy punter by some. However, this was because I was enjoying considerable success. I was not betting with ‘my own’ money, I was betting with bookmakers’ money, endeavouring to win more.

If there was a reform of the pub trade, the rules wouldn’t be written by a bunch of teetotalers, but my fear is that the people involved in bringing about these checks have never had a bet in a betting shop, have never placed a wager on their phone and have no concept of what makes for addictive gambling.

The idea that someone can have the right to look into my finances is a gross invasion of my privacy.

David Dickinson
Former BHA handicapper

I reject proposals

The idea of affordability checks for racing, if not other forms of gambling, is an attack on individual freedom and should be rejected in its entirety.

I can exercise an addiction to sugar and alcohol without any restriction, even if this causes more misery and costs to the NHS and wider society.

In any event, the bookmakers already have enough information to stem punters’ losses.

Does the Gambling Commission not know that winning punters are restricted to ridiculously small bets without any need for new ‘tools’ to ‘help’?

The quest to find appropriate limits and timeframes is a complete waste of time. There will always be loopholes and inconsistency in their application which only politicians will enjoy debating ad nauseam.

Apart from occasional visits to the racecourse, my betting is entirely on the exchanges. I deposited £200 this time last year having lost the previous £200. Over the past year I have withdrawn £600 in winnings and play with the remaining £300. Since I place value bets of £2, £5 or £10, I do ­experience significant losing runs and can lose £125 in a week, even though it takes me a long time to lose £200.

Am I to be subjected to disclosure of financial information for this harmless pursuit which enhances the ­experience and supports an under-pressure racing industry?

I believe this misguided legislation could seriously damage racing while doing nothing to prevent people losing money and playing electronic slots, which supports no-one.

In short, I will not subject myself to these procedures under any circumstances.

Jim Smith

No need to monitor us

Gambling is a hobby to me. I love my greyhounds and that is what I mainly bet on. I can’t go to a track as I live in the south-west and the nearest one to me is two and a half hours away.

I have a limit in place with my betting firm for what I can deposit a month and I keep a daily record of my profit and loss so I am aware of what I’m doing and take responsibility.

I am 67 and only have a very small pension as I took a lump sum. I have savings and own my house – so no mortgage. So how dare the government tells me what I can or can’t do with my money.

What about the people who drink or smoke to excess, or plunge money into casinos? Nothing is done about them because it is easy to get around the restrictions imposed.

I appreciate some people do gamble in excess of what they can afford, but it is they who should be monitored, not the people who just go about their hobby with restraint.

Kim Deane

Leave us alone

Peter Byrne’s letter (July 31) should be on the desk of every MP, every member of the Gambling Commission and every other person who has our sport in their sights.

What Byrne says sets out brilliantly in a few words the frustrations and anxieties of every punter, every lover of our sport so obviously under threat from this current sustained political assault on our pastime.

Forget consultations on ‘affordable limits’ or ‘acceptable losses’, the only consultation anyone should need is the case so clearly and passionately set out by Byrne. They should read it, then go away and leave us all alone.

Graham Thorpe
Leicestershire

The death knell for me

For a punter like me who has had up to ten accounts suspended or capped with leading bookies over the last 20 years or so, the restrictions are already now so great that I am totally dependent on the exchanges to get a bet on above a fiver.

The nature of my betting is primarily pinpointing value outsiders and expecting an occasional winner with an element of bet to lay in running in order to greenbook my bets. Therefore (if implemented) the proposals as detailed in the Racing Post’s lead article (July 28) would effectively act as a death knell to my approach and would result in the cessation of all serious punting.

I know from my racing friends that many punters follow broadly the same approach. A large win takes us through a large number of losses. This clearly would hit the buffers given these proposals.

Martin Shenfield

Not a true reflection

You don’t have a gambling problem, only a losing one.

Surely it is common sense, before a bookmaker targets someone to look back, say, three years at that person’s account, which would illustrate whether a problem exists or not.

Obviously if the account is in profit or losses negligible and betting stakes have not unduly increased that should be sufficient basis for no checks being required.

Profits and losses on horseracing can only be determined on a long-term basis, and to instigate proceedings on a sensibly used account after a couple of weeks’ losses is both pointless and guaranteed to drive people subjected to these checks away from racing ­altogether, or end up joining illegal operations.

Michael O’Carroll

Not how it used to be

My teenage years were back in the late 60s and early 70s. Having a bet back then was a way of life for a great many people. Form went out of the window and selections were normally based on “nice names”.Our local independent bookmaker would stick successful bets on a perspex screen at the counter and all of the local ‘experts’ pondered over how they had managed to pick them.

All transactions back then were good old cash, and if you happened to win a few bob the word would soon get around.

None of my mates and I considered ourselves as “victims” who wanted compensating and none of us have turned out to be ­irresponsible or bad people.

Just like Peter Byrne said in his letter, I too live on my own and having a gamble helps to lift the monotony.

I have always kept on the right side of the law, but all of that in today’s crazy world would appear to stand for nothing.

Weren’t things simple and uncomplicated back in the old days?

Bob Woodland

Read more here:

The Gambling Commission is waging a war on punters, and this is our last chance to fight back  

Affordability checks explained and how to respond to the Gambling Commission consultation 

Tell us about your experience of affordability checks 

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