Horseracing Industry

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Risby, on securing this debate. I have only had the odd flutter on the Grand National and occasional visits to the wonderful racecourse in my former constituency of Bath, so I am conscious that some noble Lords are far better qualified to speak on this issue than me. Nevertheless, I have raised a couple of concerns in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions relating to the sector and the industry on the issue of drones and gambling, and on wider gambling reform. I will concentrate on just those two, and I apologise for not picking up other issues raised by noble Lords.

One of the ongoing challenges for the racing industry is the use of drones to film races without the permission of the course. This is being undertaken by some in the betting community to beat the slight time lag from official TV feeds. This is very worrying for the integrity of betting markets. I believe that this desperately needs to be addressed, so I would very much welcome comments from the Minister on what the Government propose to do about it. In particular, I hope he would be willing to consider looking at broader sports rights to protect sporting events from the use of drones and to enable the organisers of sports, including horseracing of course, to have much greater control over the events that they are responsible for.

More generally on wider gambling reforms, some in the horseracing sector have argued that the proposals for reform advocated by me and other members of Peers for Gambling Reform will do great harm to the industry. Indeed, articles in the specialist media accuse me of being ignorant, economically daft and, on one occasion, even delusional. So, since I very much hope that the Government will adopt the proposals that we recommend, which stem from the proposals of your Lordships’ Select Committee on gambling, I hope I can reassure the Minister and the Committee that they will not have the impact that some believe they will.

We have to remember that well over one-third of a million people are deemed to be gambling addicts, including as many as 60,000 11 to 16 year-old children, impacting the lives of well over 2 million people in this country. Most tragically, we have hundreds of gambling-related suicides every single year, so reform of gambling is urgently needed. Since horseracing and gambling are inextricably intertwined, such reforms will clearly have an impact but, I argue, not to the degree that some have suggested. Despite what media reports have claimed, I am not a gambling prohibitionist and I do not want to ban the entire sport. Indeed, the opposite is the case: I hope it will flourish.

I cannot help but note in passing that while the amount of support for the horseracing industry that comes through the statutory horseracing betting levy has gone down, as the noble Lord, Lord Risby, has pointed out, it is still something like three times the amount of money that comes in from the voluntary levy to help research, education and treatment for gambling addiction. That is why I would like to see a statutory levy that brings in more money.

I turn briefly to the other recommendations and their relationship with the industry and, first, our recommendations to limit the links between sport and gambling advertising. I make it absolutely clear, as the Select Committee does, that we believe those proposals should exclude horseracing and greyhound racing. That is not an issue.

Secondly, we are calling for the introduction of affordability checks. Surely it is important that consumers can afford to bet in the way they do, yet some in the industry have argued that such checks will deter the vast majority of punters and even cause a huge surge in the use of black market gambling, with dire consequences for the horseracing industry. Of course, this ignores that fact that some checks involving the sharing of financial data are already required in relation to money laundering and the existing and recent requirements of the Gambling Commission.

The impact of our proposals on horseracing will be limited because, first, they are targeted at online gambling. No checks would take place at a racecourse under the proposals, so traditional gambling at the racetrack would not be affected. Secondly, for online gambling, where horseracing now also resides, we want them to be triggered at a level of £100 a month. Even one of the gambling industry’s own reports, authored for it by PwC, determined that high-spend gamblers are defined as anyone losing more than £75 a month. So a level of £100 as the trigger really will not affect any but the smallest proportion of online customers, those who are likely to be suffering or at risk of suffering a gambling disorder. Thirdly, it is perfectly possible to do the checks in an unintrusive manner. After all, the gambling industry already shares data with credit agencies so should not need to ask for additional evidence from customers in all but a few cases. Affordability checks should not be a threat to the industry.

There is one area where I acknowledge potential issues that need to be addressed. Traditional, on-course betting is very different from what takes place online. At a racetrack there is a long time gap between races and punters have time to reflect on their financial position before making the next bet. Online there are very few of the limits, whether on stakes and prizes or on speed of play, that apply to land-based gambling. I acknowledge that there may well be impacts there, but I think they could be limited.

The noble Lord, Lord Risby, agreed that the horseracing industry wants to protect people from gambling-related harm but without disproportionate measures. I genuinely believe that the proposals we are recommending achieve both the things he wants.