The government and Gambling Commission have created an appalling mess - and that should come as no surprise

As a result of the decision to formalise affordability checks, the government and Gambling Commission have failed British racing, problem gamblers and the gambling sector. 

This should not come as a shock, for the Gambling Commission and government, or more particularly the government department responsible for the issue, have many failings.

The case made against affordability checks by racing and its many supporters has been exceptionally strong, yet it barely stood a chance of success. What chance do you have when the people you are trying to convince refuse to listen or engage?

Evidence of this came on April 29 in the Parliament Street office of gambling minister Baroness Twycross. There to see her and a number of Department for Culture, Media and Sport officials were BHA chief executive Brant Dunshea, the governing body's director of communications and corporate affairs Greg Swift and Betting and Gaming Council chief executive Grainne Hurst. 

The meeting represented a potentially vital opportunity for racing and betting to make one last plea to Twycross. Their common-sense arguments, grounded in clear and easy-to-follow logic, fell on deaf ears.

The Friday before that encounter there had been another meeting, this time solely with officials, who heard the opponents of affordability checks explain why they were both concerned and angry. Officials noted that fair points had been made. This was encouraging. Regrettably, when the BHA and BGC subsequently came face to face with Twycross, it appeared that either none of those points had been conveyed to Twycross or she had failed to give them any thought.

Once again, this should perhaps have been expected. Twycross has been consistently disappointing as gambling minister. In public appearances, she has all too often seemed reliant on the piece of paper in her hands. True to form, points made to her by the BHA and BGC on April 29 were met with previously digested responses from the Gambling Commission's user manual.

Government minister Baroness Twycross has proved more of a foe than a friend to British racing

The mood of the meeting became more testy when the BHA bemoaned the lack of parliamentary scrutiny afforded an issue that is set to endanger those suffering from gambling addiction and inflict a devastating financial blow on British racing. 

Twycross was reminded that Sir Keir Starmer's Labour government pledged to adopt the previous Conservative administration's planned approach to any possible implementation of affordability checks. That pledge has been broken. 

We now know that affordability checks cannot be carried out in a fully frictionless manner, which had been a Conservative red line. Despite that, the Gambling Commission has given the green light to a policy that ought to have been tested through secondary legislation. 

Instead, in an appalling abrogation of its duties, the government long since handed complete control over a decision on affordability checks to an unelected quango and a board filled with individuals with minimal experience – and seemingly also minimal understanding – of betting and racing.

Ultimately, responsibility for that passing of the buck rests with secretary of state Lisa Nandy, an apparently non-existent player in this sorry saga. While her Conservative predecessor Lucy Frazer was not exactly an expert on matters relating to racing – then BHA chief executive Julie Harrington felt the need to draw her a helpful chart that explained how the sport is financed during a meeting about levy reform – Frazer did at least bother to meet racing's leaders. 

In stark contrast, Nandy has never yet sat down for a meeting with the governing body of the nation's second most attended spectator sport, one that directly or indirectly supports 85,000 British jobs. Quite why UK basketball has been afforded a luxury still to be enjoyed by British racing is unclear.

It was following the car-crash meeting with Twycross that the BHA decided to take an unprecedented step, one heavily influenced by its exasperation with the behaviour of the gambling industry regulator.

There can be no clearer demonstration of the BHA's lack of faith in the Gambling Commission, nor its belief that the organisation has been consistently disdainful of the need for transparency, than the fact it lodged a Freedom of Information request. 

It is remarkable that one regulator felt the need to resort to using an FOI submission against another regulator. It was a move that reflected poorly on the Gambling Commission. So, too, did the Gambling Commission's response.

The BHA felt the need to issue an FOI request with the Gambling Commission

In a June 1 reply to the BHA's request to see correspondence between the Gambling Commission, DCMS and NatCen, the research group charged with reviewing the research gathered in the affordability checks pilot, the Gambling Commission confirmed the information fell within the scope of the FOI submission but would not be released because the BHA's inquiry was deemed to be "vexatious". The reply also referred to the subject being "a live matter of public interest". How, then, could the BHA's inquiry have been vexatious?

It makes no sense, like so much of what the Gambling Commission has said and done. It was, however, a relatively rare recent example of the quango acknowledging the BHA exists. 

An email that dropped into the BHA's inbox last Monday represented the first meaningful contact racing's governing body had received from the Gambling Commission for several months. Over that period, a number of emails sent by the BHA requesting information, updates or meetings did not even receive an answer.

The sad truth, of course, is that where contact has occurred, it has often been pointless. The Gambling Commission's approach to discussions with the BHA has been a masterclass in gaslighting. 

Like Michael Palin's pet shop owner in the Monty Python dead parrot sketch, it has consistently claimed black to be white, going right back to when it argued the black market problem had been exaggerated and its bizarre insistence that it never mandated affordability checks when there is incontrovertible evidence it did exactly that in 2020.

Six years later, we find ourselves in a situation that is depressing and worrying in equal measure. Given the track record of the DCMS and Gambling Commission, that is not surprising.

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

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'It's a disaster. They don't deserve it' - sympathy expressed from the Hill and winner's enclosure as Derby day proves a washout 

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

'I go to parties because people invite me but I'm happier here - if I never saw another person, it wouldn't bother me'

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