'I think it's outrageous, it's a disgrace and it shows that the system isn't working' - punters' chief hits out over affordability checks farce

The remarkable story of how a punter with annual net losses of just 4p a day faced tortuous bureaucracy to prove he could afford to bet was described on Tuesday as evidence "the system isn't working".

Sean Trivass, who chairs the Horseracing Bettors Forum that fights for punters' rights, felt the way small-stakes backer Tom Lane was subjected to "Gambling Commission-mandated" financial checks was "outrageous".

Meanwhile, Dan Waugh, a partner at gambling analyst Regulus, accused the commission of "gaslighting" the industry and the public with its continued denials its guidance and enforcement policies had led to betting operators carrying out such arduous checks. And Waugh added the commission's "multiple pronouncements" on a variety of subjective criteria that operators should employ makes it "inevitable that these checks are going to be conducted on a fairly inconsistent basis".

Lane revealed to the Post he had been trying to discover why his bookmaker had placed a deposit restriction on his account "following an affordability review". Of his recreational gambling on racing, he said: "All my bets are small – I'm a 50p Lucky 15 punter or might have a fiver on something if I fancy it – and it's certainly very affordable."

Unibet told him affordability checks were mandated by the Gambling Commission and repeated that claim in subsequent correspondence.

"I wish I was surprised by what I read but sadly I'm not," Trivass said in response to the story. "I think it's outrageous, it's a disgrace and it shows the system isn't working. Someone needs to clarify who's supposed to do what.

"Bookmakers were fined heavily when they didn't do what the Gambling Commission thought they should do so they're probably over-egging the pudding to protect their shareholders, which is understandable. But meanwhile the Gambling Commission is denying it's anything to do with it. The reality sits somewhere in the middle. It's a deep concern to us and to everyone we represent."

Sean Trivass: "It's a deep concern to us and to everyone that we represent"Credit: Horseracing Bettors Forum

Asked what action should be taken to combat experiences such as Lane's, Trivass said: "We need to speak out and we're continuing to lobby the government and attempt to get meetings. They come back and say, 'That's a good idea, we'll have a meeting and sort it out in the future', then the silence is deafening. We think the entire industry is broken, this was a massive opportunity to fix it and they've failed to do so."

Waugh believes the Gambling Commission has forced betting operators into the patchwork of different action that makes up the affordability landscape, notably through its 2020 Enforcement Report and the September 2022 guidance on customer interaction requirements.

Waugh said: "It just highlights the continued confusion over affordability checks, which is not helped by the Gambling Commission gaslighting everybody in saying 'we've never done this' when everyone else is saying it has.

"The Gambling Commission has made multiple pronouncements on either affordability checks or vulnerability – some of which it has since reneged on but won't say as much – and so licensees have been given a vast amount of criteria to consider when they are thinking about who they need to conduct their interactions with; not just their spend but all manner of other things.

"It's inevitable that these checks are going to be conducted on a fairly inconsistent basis, and that's something that the financial risk checks won't change. You've still got instructions like 'you must check for patterns' and 'you must check for vulnerability', etc.

"Given how subjective the guidance is and how much of it there is, this is going to happen."

'There's a lack of curiosity from the commission'

Waugh criticised the Gambling Commission's repeated denials it has influenced the way operators behave in their customer interactions, and argued that May's interim voluntary code on checks had not made the situation for bettors any clearer as the industry waits on the results of the current trials for proposed new financial risk checks.

"What we have heard from operators is that the commission's own officers are saying the voluntary code is all well and good but it's in addition to everything else, not instead of," he said.

"The commission denies that's true, as Andrew Rhodes did in the letter published in the Racing Post. There's a lack of curiosity from the commission. If licensees are being told that the bridging code doesn't really change anything but the Gambling Commission says that's not what it is hearing, then that speaks to the relationship the commission has with its licensees, and in particular the fear that many operators have of calling it out."

Waugh also implored the Gambling Commission to come to terms with its own role in the current confusion, as illustrated by Lane's tangle with bureaucracy.

"Every time something like this comes up, the commission’s response is, 'We're right and everyone else is wrong', or [it argues that] people have misunderstood.

CEO Andrew Rhodes has repeatedly denied the Gambling Commission has mandated operators to carry out invasive affordability checks

"It's this unwillingness to accept the possibility that they might have got something wrong. We see that time and again and it means that these problems, rather than being investigated, get swept under the carpet [and allowed] to accumulate."

Lane's story emerged following the publication of statistics by the Gambling Commission that showed online betting turnover on racing up to the end of March 2024 had plummeted by £1.6 billion in the last two years, creating a real-terms black hole in betting turnover of £3bn once adjusted for inflation. And the BHA on Tuesday underlined the damage that similar experiences could do to the funding of the sport.

A spokesperson said: "The BHA has repeatedly warned that placing restrictions in the way of bettors will have a harmful effect on horse racing's finances. Recent figures show an alarming decline in betting turnover and we will continue to engage with the government and the Gambling Commission to ensure the views of bettors are heard and the concerns of British racing about the current direction of travel are understood."

Read these next:

How a punter with average losses of 4p a day got caught in an affordability check nightmare 

'It's costing turnover' - restrictions are forcing down online betting says professional gambler Neil Channing 

Labour vice-chair of parliamentary racing group calls for 'urgent action to arrest financial decline' of the sport in Britain 

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