THE PERFECT STORM?

Lee Keys looks at the fallout from the Government White Paper on Gambling – and how racing could be its biggest casualty

- Lee Keys

The White Paper

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or have gone to Mars on one of Elon’s rockets, then you will be fully aware of the predicament British racing is in right now. With the published Government White Paper putting forward proposals that will mean me and thee, at some point, will need to submit personal financial details to the big gambling operators, in order to have a bet.

The SCV – Single Customer View It is argued by the gambling harm charities that gambling is causing a lot of misery and in some rare cases ‘death’ by suicide to the people suffering from addiction and that gambling operators have not been doing enough to protect those at risk of harm. In the past the operators have even taken advantage of ‘addicts’ by luring them back to play with big deposit bonuses and special offers, a term known as ‘rinsing’ the customer.

So, the SCV (single customer view) was proposed as a solution to reduce/prevent gambling harm from taking place. The government, headed by the secretary of state for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – Lucy Frazer – have clearly taken the side of the gambling harm groups and proposed that there should be checks on an individual when a certain financial loss threshold has been breached. These amounts have yet to be decided but the early signs are that they are going to be quite low before an affordability check will take place.