Neil Channing and the Gambling Gambit

In the world of British gambling, it seems everyone’s playing their part in a sprawling farce of misplaced blame and selective outrage. On one side, you have the Gambling Commission, wielding affordability checks like a nanny confiscating sweets; on the other, bookmakers, somehow both victims and villains, gleefully closing accounts while crying foul about overregulation. And in the middle stands Neil Channing, gambler, pundit, and now—belatedly—the self-proclaimed conscience of the punters.

The problem, as Channing tells it, is that affordability checks are strangling horseracing, reducing punters to nervously rationing their bets like wartime bread. “You just have to bet smaller as you're limited on what you can deposit, and that's not really how most people bet,” he laments. For Channing, this is not just inconvenient; it’s a betrayal of the great British pastime of spaffing one’s cash on Cheltenham after two barren months of dodging third-rate midwinter fixtures.

But as always, the devil is in the detail—or, in this case, the lack of it. While Channing has been eloquent about the ills of regulatory overreach, he’s been conspicuously quieter on the bookmaker practices that paved the way for this mess.

Bookmakers: Villains in Victims’ Clothing

The bookmakers, you see, are playing a blinder. On the one hand, they’re using affordability checks to “weed out business they don't want,” as Channing puts it. On the other, they’re blaming the Gambling Commission for alienating punters and shrinking the betting base. It’s a perfect double-play: milk the situation for profit, then feign helplessness when the horse industry starts looking for scapegoats.

Bookmakers have been unilaterally restricting accounts for years, targeting small-time winners and cutting off anyone with even a sniff of a profitable system. Yet now they cry foul, lamenting the very affordability checks they’ve cynically weaponised to prune their customer base. “It’s costing turnover but not levy necessarily,” Channing says, which is a polite way of pointing out that they’re happy to ditch punters who don’t fatten the bottom line.

Yet for all this, Channing’s criticism of bookmakers has been tepid at best. Perhaps he’s just now realising the depth of their opportunism—or perhaps he’s spent too long enjoying their RMG pastries to want to rock the boat.

The Racing Industry’s Long Odds

Meanwhile, the racing industry is galloping into crisis. A 25% drop in online turnover has left a £3 billion black hole in horseracing finances, with Arena Racing’s Martin Cruddace pointing the finger squarely at the Gambling Commission. “Unaccountable and out of control,” Cruddace declares, as though Andrew Rhodes spends his evenings plotting new ways to destroy British sport for a laugh.

But Rhodes, chief executive of the Gambling Commission, was quick to clap back. Cruddace’s claims, he sniffed, are based on a “thorough misunderstanding of what has been happening and what we are proposing.” If only misunderstanding could be added to the tote board at Newmarket; it seems to be the one thing everyone in this debate agrees on.

The industry’s attempt to bypass the regulator and appeal directly to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy reeks of desperation. What, exactly, do they expect Starmer to do? Convene an emergency summit of punters, politicians, and bookmaker barons over tea and biscuits? Or perhaps he’ll launch a public inquiry into why racing’s been so appallingly bad at reading the room these past two decades.

Channing: Too Late to the Paddock

And then there’s Channing, straddling his soapbox like a jockey on a lame mare. His newfound crusade against affordability checks is admirable, but it does beg the question: where has he been? For years, punters have been quietly throttled by bookmakers’ account restrictions, limits, and closures, often with no recourse and little warning. Yet Channing’s protests have been conspicuously muted—until now, when the regulatory axe is poised to fall.

His critique is clear: affordability checks are invasive, absurd, and impractical. "Do we have to look at how much this guy spends on food every month?” he asks, in reference to a man with £300,000 in savings and a £70,000 pension who was limited to £300 a month by a bookmaker. “How many children has he got? Whether he lives in an expensive area like London or the rural north?”

It’s a valid point, but the irony is thick. For years, bookmakers have been limiting stakes, closing accounts, and rejecting bets with all the precision of a toddler smashing toys. Channing, for all his rhetoric about the common punter, had little to say about these injustices. Only now, with affordability checks threatening to hobble the industry altogether, has he decided to channel his inner Che Guevara.

The Existential Threat Nobody Noticed

Channing calls affordability checks an “existential threat” to horseracing, and he’s not wrong. The sport relies on betting revenues to survive, and anything that reduces turnover risks bringing the entire ecosystem to its knees. But the existential threat didn’t begin with the Gambling Commission. It began years ago, when bookmakers started pruning their customer base with arbitrary restrictions, targeting anyone who dared to make a profit. Even Marx would be appalled.

By ignoring this for so long, Channing and others in the industry allowed the crisis to fester. Now, as the walls close in, they’re scrambling to fight back against the regulators, conveniently overlooking the bookmakers’ role in creating the very conditions that led to these reforms.

Final Stretch: Betting on Balance

What’s needed now is a balanced critique—one that acknowledges both the heavy-handedness of the Gambling Commission and the predatory practices of bookmakers. Regulation should protect vulnerable individuals without punishing responsible bettors, but it should also hold operators accountable for their long-standing habit of exploiting their customers. Punters are just fed up of Rhodes at the Gambling Commission, they are pissed off with Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, Hills, Bet 365 and all the corporate bookmakers that are killing the game. Take away the hope of winning and betting is dead.

Channing’s late-stage activism is better than nothing, but it’s far from sufficient. If he truly wants to save the sport he loves, he must broaden his critique and tackle the industry’s problems from all sides. Until then, his crusade against affordability checks will ring hollow—a half-hearted effort from a man who only showed up to the paddock when the race was almost over.