Farcical contradiction in the Gambling Bill will see racing and betting pushed closer together

As the Gambling Regulation Bill negotiates the remaining stages of the legislative process in the Seanad, it's becoming increasingly unlikely an exemption will be granted for subscription-based racing channels in relation to the impending gambling advertising watershed.

James Browne, the junior minister responsible for the bill, reiterated in the upper house of the Oireachtas last week that providing a "monopoly on gambling advertising" to such channels would contravene competition law, while he also ridiculed the suggestion that Racing TV would experience any difficulty in tailoring advertisements in Ireland to satisfy the incoming legislation.

There has been little discussion about section 148, which prohibits bookmakers from offering inducements to "participate, or continue to participate, in a relevant gambling activity", although the term ‘inducement’ isn’t expanded upon. It is understood that this will be targeted at any promotions which could lure the public into having a flutter such as free bets and money back specials.

Should the bill also legislate Racing TV out of existence in Ireland, a situation would unfold that would bear striking similarities to the cobra effect in Delhi during the British Raj whereby, seeking to reduce the population of venomous cobras, the British government inadvertently increased their numbers. The offer of a bounty for dead cobras meant people began to breed them and, once the initiative was scrapped, their release back into the wild caused the population to surge. 

Without Racing TV, the only place to watch live racing in Ireland will be on a bookmaker's stream and you generally have to place a bet to access a live race online. The government will strip bookmakers of their ability to offer standard inducements, while also enabling them to market themselves as the only place to watch live racing in Ireland, which for most racing fans would be the ultimate motive to place a wager and would undoubtedly result in a surge of new customer accounts.

Being a passionate racing fan with zero interest in punting would be a thing of the past as you would have to participate in some form of gambling or be on a bookmaker's premises in order to be a live spectator of the sport. It would, needless to say, be a farcical contradiction of the bill’s intentions.

In December, Browne condemned racing for being "solely reliant" on gambling companies for advertising and questioned it for "ending up with this narrow dependency on one industry". This really exposes the lack of understanding at government level as to the intricacies of the issues at play with this bill and racing.

It’s vexing for the industry to listen to a junior minister pontificate about racing’s association with bookmakers while the bill he has curated seeks to essentially pour cement over that relationship by handing betting companies exclusive rights to racing's only medium of exposure.

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