The case against affordability checks is now unanswerable

Affordability checks are hugely unpopular, have an unproven impact on harmful gambling, cost the state money in lost tax revenues, feed the booming black market, are an illiberal intrusion into people's personal lives, threaten the future of horseracing, and don't work. But apart from that, they're a great idea. 

That, in a paragraph, is what the Gambling Commission board are being asked to consider on Thursday. The right course of action is clear: they must heed the concerns of bettors, horseracing, bookmakers, MPs, black market experts and even early proponents of affordability checks – and pause the implementation of what the commission calls financial risk assessments.

The cost of proceeding has been clearly articulated. The Betting & Gaming Council warns that the new checks, which involve credit reference agencies running financial scans on punters, produce inconsistent results and will result in almost half a million customers being asked to provide financial documents to continue betting. 

The last five years – during which a patchwork regime of ad hoc checks has been implemented under threat of swingeing Gambling Commission fines – has proven time and again that the vast majority are simply unwilling to share this information with betting companies. 

The effect has been stark: since 2021, when checks first became widespread, online turnover on horseracing – whose higher staking, serious customers are so exposed to checks triggered by spending thresholds – has fallen from a peak of £10 billion to less than £8bn last year. Even if other factors have contributed, the pattern is unmistakable.

It is no coincidence the betting black market has exploded in popularity over the same period. A recent report estimated illegal betting has trebled in three years, reaching £16.6bn in turnover last year. The paltry resources and limited reach of the commission cannot hope to make even a dent in such a vast, flexible and global criminal enterprise. 

It was not so long ago that the Gambling Commission painted the black market as a bogeyman. In 2023, then chief executive Andrew Rhodes told MPs "I think the risk is overstated" and that he believed "the size of the black market is very small". 

Three years later the commission's Tim Miller gave a speech to the betting industry at which he mentioned the 'illegal market' 12 times. More recently, he lamented the regulator's impotence to get social media giants to stop hosting black market advertising. 

The coalition calling for a rethink on checks goes far beyond the obvious, including a gambling minister in the last government and a key early proponent of affordability checks, James Noyes, who recently resigned from his role as a government adviser on gambling policy at the prospect of these checks being rolled out "before any meaningful – and independent – evaluation of this policy can be carried out".

It is remarkable that the embattled government, via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, has effectively abdicated responsibility to the commission for the decision on checks, but it would be nothing short of negligent for the commissioners to plough ahead with a policy that risks pushing hundreds of thousands more bettors out of the legal market. 

If regulation is supposed to be evidence-based, they have a duty to pause the rollout before it can wreak havoc. 

Read more here:

'The collateral damage is gigantic' - calls for affordability checks rethink on eve of pivotal Gambling Commission meeting 

Who are the Gambling Commission board members responsible for Thursday's crucial affordability checks decision? 

Glacial progress, substantial problems and no evaluation - why there are huge concerns about the affordability checks pilot

Racecourse MPs slam insufficient scrutiny and lack of transparency as they urge a halt to introduction of 'damaging' affordability checks 

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