The campaigners are launching a new attack on gambling - and this one is a direct threat to ITV's racing coverage

With the dawning of a new year there potentially comes a new crisis. If the issue at its heart gains significant momentum, as campaigners fervently hope it will, unlikely friendships forged last year will be tested. More importantly, British racing will be left facing a huge threat.

This first column of 2026 comes with apologies. Hot on the heels of a festive period that was positive in so many ways, it would be good to deliver a wholly upbeat message. The harsh truth, however, is that the successes enjoyed by the sport in recent weeks are in stark contrast to the challenge it could soon face.

The sport has seldom looked so popular as it did over the Christmas and new year period. Wonderful action took place in front of packed grandstands at multiple venues. Ascot's Long Walk Hurdle was seen by a record crowd of 20,659, up 6.2 per cent on last season. Kempton's two biggest days enjoyed a 23 per cent year-on-year increase and the King George VI Chase was won by a marvellous horse owned by one of football's most popular figures. Then on Thursday Cheltenham's New Year's Day meeting was a sellout, with a whopping attendance of 44,151 well in advance of anything the card had previously achieved.

Before getting too carried away by those numbers, one caveat should be applied, namely that on neither Boxing Day nor New Year's Day were there any afternoon Premier League football matches to tempt people away from the racing. Having said that, there really was a discernible feelgood factor at Ascot, Kempton and Cheltenham, while other racecourses welcomed bumper crowds to their fixtures. 

Cheltenham's New Year's Day action was staged in front of a sellout crowdCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

The Cheltenham attendance was particularly startling, not least because January 1 was this year followed by a normal working day, which in theory could have been expected to keep some people at home. Instead, the place was full of people, more than 6,000 of them under-18. 

It marked a most auspicious start to a year in which attention will inevitably focus on whether the decline in festival attendances can be arrested. It is also a year in which the Jockey Club plans to direct considerable investment towards its most profitable asset. In addition, it is understood that revisiting the long-term aspiration to build a racecourse hotel is very much on the agenda of Cheltenham's chief executive Guy Lavender.

A hefty chunk of any money pumped into the sport comes directly or indirectly from bookmakers, whose contribution to the record-breaking Cheltenham card was obvious. Three of the four races shown by ITV were sponsored by Betfair. ITV's programme was sponsored by Paddy Power and also took in two Musselburgh races sponsored by Virgin Bet and a £100,000 Windsor handicap hurdle backed by Fitzdares.

Something else happened on New Year's Day, this time much more ominous. 

Just before noon The Guardian published a story that claimed Sir Keir Starmer's government will "come under mounting pressure to introduce curbs on gambling advertising this year". The article also pointed to recent polling that, readers were told, revealed "strong public backing for a much less permissive approach to promotion, including sponsorship". 

The trigger for the story was research carried out for the Coalition To End Gambling Ads (CEGA), a group whose overriding aim is unambiguously laid out in its name. Alongside the polling was a report that included a foreword by Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a long-time advocate for harsher gambling regulation, and wild references by the authors Andrew Fowler and Charlie Buckley to gambling as a public health issue or concern. 

According to the executive summary, "Britons are by no means puritans and are happy to see gambling enjoyed in moderation". How gracious of them. It was a sentence that implied those of us who like to bet should be grateful to our fellow non-puritanical citizens (and the report's writers and funders) for being allowed to do as we please.

With no attempt at subtlety – often a wise approach when attempting to communicate with politicians – the report also dangled a carrot in front of Labour ministers and backbenchers, arguing that "a thoughtful and targeted response to this issue could help the governing party’s fortunes". One does not need a decent memory to recall similar arguments being made in relation to last year's successful campaign to increase gambling taxation.

ITV's racing coverage is fuelled by bookmaker sponsorship and advertising Credit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

To an extent, although only to an extent, racing survived that onslaught in one piece. Should the Coalition To End Gambling Ads – which you will note is not the Coalition To Curb or Restrict Gambling Ads – succeed, the consequences for racing would be enormous. Bookmaker sponsorship is vital to funding prize-money. Just as importantly, ITV's racing coverage is fuelled by bookmaker sponsorship and advertising. 

ITV does a wonderful job for racing and its enthusiasm for the sport is genuine, as evidenced by racing's ever-growing presence on the main ITV1 channel and the signing last year of a contract that extends its coverage until at least the end of 2030. However, as a commercial broadcaster it is a business not a charity. It makes money from the sport, which is good for the sport and good for ITV. A ban on gambling advertising would almost certainly ultimately result in British racing losing a huge amount of its mainstream television coverage.

The government offered valuable support to racing last year. More of the same may now be needed. Among those who urged the government to back racing were prominent gambling harm campaigners such as James Noyes and Matt Zarb-Cousin, both of whom argued that racing merited special treatment, even calling for a racing carve-out in relation to affordability checks. 

One would hope they will be similarly vocal now – but hope could be futile. 

CEGA's website lists a number of members. According to its website, these organisations are "committed to campaigning for an end to gambling advertising promotion and sponsorship". Among the organisations named as being supportive of an objective that is neither nuanced nor qualified is Zarb-Cousin's Clean Up Gambling. 

Also not nuanced, for it is incontrovertible, is the assertion that a total ban on gambling advertising would be devastating for British racing. As this latest attack on betting develops, we will discover whether some of racing's friends are in reality its foes.

This column is exclusive to Racing Post+ Ultimate subscribers. Subscribers can read more pieces from Lee Mottershead here:

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