A day that could ruin lives, enrich criminals and damage a great British industry - unless Gambling Commission board members choose to be heroes

Inexplicably, unforgivably, it seems an almighty mess is about to be made. 

A decision will be taken on Thursday that has the potential to ruin lives, enrich the criminal underworld and damage a great British industry. 

There was no need for this to happen and perhaps it will not. Powerful people with a duty to listen have rammed fingers in ears and wilfully ignored good sense. There is, however, no requirement for the Gambling Commission's board to do the same. It is with the members of that board that our hopes now rest.

A good board should not simply rubber stamp the wishes of its executive. As such, when the Gambling Commission on Thursday asks its board of commissioners to approve the formal introduction of affordability checks, those commissioners should think carefully about sanctioning a system that is set to have disastrous consequences. 

Moreover, they should be fully aware that if affordability checks are given the green light, they will be equally accountable for all that follows.

• Bookmakers threaten legal challenge to affordability checks that could mean one in five regular punters are asked for financial documents 
• Affordability checks will hit the less well-off and do great damage to racing 
• Betting expert hits back at 'clearly ludicrous' claim affordability checks can't be assessed until they are implemented 
• Affordability checks will be evaluated 'in the real world' despite calls for a pause in their implementation 
• Astonishing and unacceptable: key DCMS adviser quits in disgust over plan to roll out affordability checks 

Most of us will not know, or ever meet, Charles Counsell, Claudia Mortimore, David Rossington, Helen Dodds, Helen Phillips, Lloydette Bai-Marrow or Sheree Howard, yet we can assume they joined the Gambling Commission's board with the intention of serving the public interest. 

Their motivation throughout will have been to help, not harm. What they need to see is that affordability checks will help few and harm many. 

Endless words have been written and spoken about the threat posed by affordability checks. We must hope the commissioners have kept themselves fully abreast of the debate. 

This is important because the Gambling Commission's senior executive team will presumably have distributed agenda papers that recommend the introduction of what the regulator prefers to refer to as financial risk assessments, presumably in a futile attempt to cleanse a tarnished brand. 

It appears improbable that any of the commission's principal employees will be actively or enthusiastically putting forward the alternative (sensible) point of view. The commissioners therefore need to display the willingness to challenge and scrutinise that is required of any decent member of any board.

Counsell, the board's interim chair, will know why affordability checks are so dangerous having last month been sent a letter by Betting and Gaming Council chief executive Grainne Hurst that explained how the pilot of checks had highlighted their alarming failings, not least that they would result in a "significant volume of increased document requests" from bookmakers' customers due to issues with the inconsistent data provided by credit reference agencies.

The letter – also sent to culture secretary Lisa Nandy, gambling minister Baroness Twycross and the Gambling Commission's acting chief executive Sarah Gardner – spelled out that one in five punters spending more than £200 a year on betting could be asked to provide personal financial documents in order to be given permission by the state to carry on betting. 

The letter's recipients were warned that vast numbers of people would be sent into the arms of the black market. They were reminded that British racing and the exchequer would take a major financial hit. They were also advised that bookmakers are prepared to mount a legal challenge if affordability checks are waved through.

There is no scope for anyone in the government or Gambling Commission to plead ignorance given so many knowledgeable people, some of them most unlikely bedfellows, have become united against affordability checks. 

Former Conservative minister Stuart Andrew has called for affordability checks to be sent back to parliamentCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

Even Stuart Andrew, the Conservative minister who was responsible for affordability checks before the 2024 general election, has now called on Sir Keir Starmer's Labour administration to press pause and bring the matter back to parliament. 

"As minister, I was clear that affordability checks must be genuinely frictionless and must not drive punters towards the black market," wrote Andrew, recognising that affordability checks – note he did not call them financial risk assessments – are not genuinely frictionless and do and will drive punters towards the black market. 

What was also obvious from the former minister's intervention is that there would be no loss of political capital to Labour if they do heed his call. 

Andrew is not saying affordability checks were an unequivocally bad idea, simply that there is now evidence to show they cannot work in practice as their proponents hoped they would. Calling a halt to their implementation represents a pragmatic response, not an embarrassing ideological backtrack.  

Sadly, the Gambling Commission is unlikely to see it that way. In the latest risible development, it has argued that despite having already been trialled, financial risk assessments can properly be evaluated only once fully rolled out. 

Having invested so much in affordability checks, the Gambling Commission may now have succumbed to the delusion that it cannot walk away from them, even though to its senior leaders, as to almost everyone who has opined on the subject, it must be obvious it has created a monster. 

Just as the Gambling Commission's executive now appears resistant to change, it is increasingly hard to believe a government that has entered a period of political paralysis will have much bandwidth to give this vital matter the serious consideration it deserves. 

The Gambling Commission is a regulator that appears to have little understanding of, or care for, the sector it regulates and the huge number of people who enjoy betting. It is therefore to the members of the Gambling Commission's board that we now turn. 

They have the potential to be heroes, not villains. Let us hope that on Thursday they do their job and rise to the occasion.

Racing Post+ Ultimate subscribers can read more pieces from Lee Mottershead here:

The amazing story of Frankel's one failure - and how he bounced back to prove the experts wrong 

'Perception doesn't bother me - I don't care what people think. If you don't like it, you don't like it - I've not done anything wrong' 

'I enjoy making money and it's so easy to do, all you need is a brain' - the gospel according to Saint Mick  

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'I've made a million mistakes' - Frankie Dettori recalls the highs and lows of his extraordinary career in a straight-talking interview 

Meet the former jockey who took $15m off Atlantic City - and is now one of the world's biggest racing punters 

'The days leading up to the race were the most nerve-racking of my career and this added even more pressure - I was furious' 

‘I’ve never had to deal with that in my career and I did find it hard - you start asking yourself what you’re doing wrong’ 

'The grief hits me quite a lot - so many people think I'm really tough but I get terribly upset by things inwardly'  

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