I think the unregulated market issue is massively exaggerated. Online in particular will be easy to clamp down on. I remember it used to be easy to get live streams of sporting events and downloads of new released films in the past. It's not so easy now.

There was no black market till 2014/15, but after that non-uk licensed knew that there were operating illegally if they accepted bets from the UK.

No one has been exploited at all, just a few lacking in IQ have fallen for the clever ads and marketing. Everyone is responsible for their own actions.. end of.

TM - difference to the customer?

Fair point.

I would imagine - I do not bet with them - no protection of customer funds in case of insolvency and no recourse to law to extract funds/winnings if needed.

In essence there is/was no difference - what the books are calling "The Black Market" and accusing of being dangerous and exploitative - is basically a business that is operating just like they have for the past 20 years (until very, very recently).

@dave1357

"almost no uk licensed firms (betfair excluded) provide any meaningful protection of funds. That due to a GC anti-customer decision."

Looks like quite  afew more than just BF but not as many as it should be, agreed.

https://ukhbf.org/betting-charter/hbf-register-of-protection-of-funds/

How is Dugher still in a job after the comments by Scully today?

Dugher and his ilk can't really lose - imo liberator.

If (as i have said is likely all along) the white paper is a storm in a teacup and doesn't make much difference to the responsible player - he will say it was because of the brilliant campaign they ran to defend our human rights from the interfering nanny-state. On the other hand if any of the alarmist bollix that he, the bookmakers and the Racing Post have been spewing every day actually comes to pass, he can say - I told you so. Either way - I would bet (responsibly!) that they all still have a job at the end of it!

Bill Barber and Lee Mottershead will apologise to each of them individually for all of their alarmist nonsense that has caused the situation- and then Michael Dugher will offer them all some free spins!

Here are my thoughts and views, I don't expect anyone on this thread to agree or disagree with me. My views are just my perspective, just wanting to point that out.

"Affordability" is different for each individual. There are algorithms to STOP people from making money from horse racing, the same " algorithms" could be used to spot people getting addicted and in real need of help. They won't STOP these people that are out of control, because it will hit their profits. It makes me sick.

The Gambling Commission is not fit for purpose, and hand out fines, that are quite frankly laughable. A pathetic organization.

Hit these Huge companies hard with % of profits fines, and they WILL change how they prey on the vulnerable. Until then, the gambling commission are a joke.


People have already moved away from horse racing betting, that's why revenue is down. We are in a global recession and people don't have as much income left to throw away...(most people will lose gambling)

Punters in this country who have an ounce of knowledge and skill in horse racing have already been spotted by the algorithms and cut off to pence.

Horse Racing is not as popular as it once was. I will always love horse racing and betting because I grew up with it.

Online casinos, disguised as sportsbooks, do not care for horse racing or their customers who bet on it. It's just there to push people onto their additive slots. IMO. (Apart from Cheltenham and Ascot)

Horse Racing is too expensive to go and watch, and people are fed up with being ripped off with drink and food at the tracks.

Low grade horse racing in the UK and Ireland is not entirely straight. (IMO)

The world of horse racing is quite niche, and lots of businesses and tracks like to stick with people they know.

Online casino sportsbooks should have been Farmers for "Horse Racing" they turned into Hunters.

It will be very difficult now for the sport to attract new customers, and the ones that have turned away and treated badly, will not return IMO

That's just a few of my thoughts.

Blimey this White Paper going to have to solve many ills in some people’s minds, whether that was it’s intention or not.
It’s as though it’s now saddled with all the hopes and dreams of every disgruntled punter and will somehow convert the underlying issue that bookies only offer services in the pursuit of profit.

Perhaps they will become philanthropists providing exactly what everyone wants and doing it at a loss.

If the abuses carried out during the GC’s incompetence are significant, then it shouldn’t be hard to hold them to account on established law.
This isn’t about that, this is about creating a new level of restriction based on the apparent failing of the regulator to keep things in check.

People need to recognise who the real alarmists are, instead of continually attempting to rubbish any impact on the industry at large.

It’s a pretty militant stand point to list the abuses of slots etc and cite all the degenerate desperados who refuse to help themselves, aligning the activity of playing these un winnable products with people who have external problems as the reason everyone should be reviewed to bet on non gaming products.
Think about that, never mind all this anti bookie rhetoric, the people who created the proposals can’t even be bothered defining gambling and gaming, they are in it to get as much as they can, the wolf in sheeps clothing.

We have already witnessed the anti bookie sentiment on here, everything a bookie says (who are the only ones providing the products) is apparently a ruse and some psychoanalytic double think….when supporters of restrictions and wide scale inspections admit they don’t care what negative effect it has going forward, just as long as bookies get punished.

All this stuff about algorithms is over my head but surely Exchanges allow you to get a reasonable bet on if you back the same horse several times and there is no incentive for Betfair or purple to exclude winners. If you bet in thousands and keep winning then it is not surprising that nobody will play with you. Would you allow someone to take £1000 a week from you?

Says the man who comes on constantly denigrating the only providers of the service while justifying wholesale encroachment on the wider public because he won’t acknowledge self control.
Yeah nothing to see, just the manifestation of chaos where anti gambling lobbies used selective information to cudgel public opinion via humiliating the regulator’s lack of action.

The two arn’t the same thing.
Hold the regulator to account and make them apply existing rules, don’t think up ever more puritanical ways of forcing what people can and can’t do by victimising loss.

Who’s going to pay these taxes if there isn’t an option to bet beyond a small clientele, and the companies have passed off?

The cross party group never mentioned forcing bookies to take bets, that’s the antithesis of what they want, they want fewer people betting less.
Because like you they are nothing but vindictive.

If you want to bet then bet otherwise take your fkin hand wringing and apply it to your fellow losers who give a ****.

You've been completely conned, sucked in hook, line and sinker by bookmakers scaremongering and propaganda - but of course you were really ripe for con and easy to manipulate due to your political beliefs. One born every minute.

The end game in TM’s world is either restrictions on the majority, or it not so bad but bookies punished for excess and potentially driven off that way.

Hobson’s fking choice by the guy happy to see the exchange fold.

You don't half talk some pony when telling me what i have said and what i think. None of the things you are attributing to me are anything like what i have said or what i think.

You have said on this very forum that if the demise of the exchange happens as a result of extra scrutiny that dragged in people who don’t have gambling problems (where people arn’t allowed to lose in the pursuit of winning) then so be it because everything has a shelf life and it’s been a good 20 years.

Yes, all along you have hid behind the fact ‘bookies should’ do this ‘bookies should do that’, but no cnt is looking at your proposals, they are however talking about grouping the activities of gambling and gaming together on a deposit/loss calculation, so that even those who have never played slots will get hampered.

But it’s true, I’m not so Lilly livered as to buy the assertions that such as you do, that because a person has limitations in the form of non ability to quantify probability and instead (as you suggested recently) they only continually lose on slots because they feel depressed.

I don’t care whether slots exist or don’t exist, if ppl want to play them then that’s up to them, it’s a choice. I took my right to self restrict on them not because I’d be tempted but because the option was there, as it is for everyone, just some people want everyone else to be guilty of their own personal lapses.

Be honest, all you care about is that you can continue to utilise your time edge (I assume you are a time traveller?) to fleece the ever decreasing number of people that still play in-running horse markets with no time me edge or a lesser time edge.

Maybe you haven't actually had any accounts closed - because you are only a winner due to time travel on the exchange. I probably made the mistake of thinking you were actually a player that wanted to see a fair and healthy industry survive and grow.

If the sole trigger for a chaotic, panic stricken insistence from betfair that you need to undergo an affordability check is depositing - I would have thought that was good advice. You've had plenty notice and a daily reminder in the Racing Post and from fools like you, that the world was about to end.