At last, common sense on affordability checks

For the many thousands of punters who have already been caught up in affordability checks and the millions more who are appalled at the idea of having to prove they can 'afford' a bet, Thursday's comments from the British gambling minister will represent a welcome dose of common sense.

At last, a senior politician has unequivocally stated what bettors have been saying for months: it is obviously not the role of the government, never mind an unelected quango like the Gambling Commission, to determine how much we choose to spend on betting.

Enhanced protections for the vulnerable are important, but they cannot come at the cost of vast numbers of responsible punters being told to provide payslips, P60s and details of savings, or face having their right to bet withdrawn.

Yet that is exactly the situation that the Gambling Commission has imposed having created a regulatory environment whereby bookmakers who fail to carry out these intrusive checks fear being hit by crippling fines or even having their licences withdrawn.

Thursday's comments by Paul Scully, the minister responsible for gambling, were a stinging rebuke to the commission. He could hardly have been more crystal clear that affordability checks are not appropriate and will not be adopted as policy.

But it is not enough for the minister to say this, however powerful those words are. The Gambling Commission, with staggering disingenuousness, has claimed it has not mandated affordability checks on punters, as if we are supposed to believe bookmakers have willingly sabotaged their own businesses by adopting them.

Until the commission is forced to declare unambiguously that bookmakers are not expected to impose affordability checks on their customers, punters will continue to be caught up in these grossly invasive financial probes.

The government has acted decisively to declare affordability checks are not appropriate, but now it must rein in the Gambling Commission before catastrophic damage is done to the regulated bookmaking sector – and sports, like racing, that rely on it for funding.

Read these next:

Minister: 'It's not our role to tell people what they can spend on gambling' 

John Gosden fears affordability checks and black market could 'spell disaster' for racing 

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