The British Horseracing Authority has denied working with an anti-gambling lobby and defended its ‘Axe the Racing Tax’ campaign.
Earlier this month all scheduled horse racing in Britain was cancelled in a strike against plans to harmonise online gambling tax, with meetings abandoned at Uttoxeter, Lingfield, Kempton and Carlisle.
Champion jockey Oisin Murphy warned horse racing is in major trouble with the tax threat.
The cancellations were condemned by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), the trade and standards body for British regulated betting, alongside some of the biggest UK bookmakers.
Bookmakers were not happy about not being consulted ahead of the strike action, which is believed to have resulted in a £700,000 loss to the industry.
It was noted that the BHA attended a ’roundtable discussion’ organised by the think tank Social Market Foundation which has proposed a hike in gambling tax.
In a statement, the BHA called suggestions it was working closely with the anti-gambling lobby ‘simply inaccurate’ and said it simply laid out its opposition to the proposal.
Currently, gambling tax is paid in two categories – a general duty that covers sports like horse racing taxed at 15% of gross profits and a remote gaming duty that concerns casino games and slot machines levied at 21%.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is widely expected to harmonise online gambling tax in her autumn budget on November 26, combining it into a single rate. It could have devastating consequences for the sport of horse racing, with fears of losses of up to £160 million.
It would mean racing becomes the most expensive product a bookmaker can carry, forcing operators to make prices less competitive in order to maintain profit margins. If Reeves follows through, a recent survey revealed nearly a third of UK gamblers could head for the black market.
Racing has argued it should continue to be taxed differently to casino products, with its status as a British sport, a huge part of the country’s culture and being less common with problem gambling than products like slots.
Joe Lyons is a betting industry writer for GamblingIndustryNews with years of experience on reputable gambling websites. Joe specialises in long form content in the world of sports betting and gambling. Joe is recognised as an expert in sports fields such as horse racing, soccer, NFL and NBA.
