Financial Inquests vs Gambling Harm Assessments

It’s a tale as old as British bureaucracy itself: well-meaning regulators, armed with the blunt instrument of moral panic, set out to fix a problem. Somewhere between committee meetings and PowerPoint presentations, they realise that crafting an actually sensible policy is far too difficult, so instead, they settle for a catchy label that sounds good in headlines.

Enter “affordability checks”—a term so lazily constructed, so misleadingly comforting, that it could have been devised by a Whitehall intern with a thesaurus and a hangover. The phrase lures you in, like a smiling estate agent assuring you that the “cosy” studio flat you’re about to sign for isn’t just a glorified airing cupboard. Except, much like that cupboard, the reality of affordability checks is far more suffocating than advertised.

For punters, it means financial interrogations for even the most modest of bets. For horse racing, it means a slow strangulation of its very lifeblood. And for the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), it means a mortifying existential crisis: does it actually represent racing, or is it merely the bookmakers' overpaid receptionist, too timid to speak up when the sport itself is at stake?

A Label That Betrays Reality

Words matter. Labels shape perception. If they’d called these financial inquests “Gambling Harm Assessments”, people might have paused and thought, “Fair enough, that’s about helping those genuinely in trouble.” But affordability checks? Oh, that sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it? Just making sure people aren’t betting beyond their means. Nothing to worry about.

Except that’s not how it works. Affordability checks don’t just look for problem gamblers. They apply to everyone, with the subtlety of a nightclub bouncer demanding your ID when you’ve been a regular for 30 years. You could have a spotless record of sensible betting, a stable income, and a mortgage so under control it makes Martin Lewis weep with joy—and yet, under this system, you’re treated as though you might secretly be an erratic gambler moments away from staking your Nan’s funeral fund on a donkey at Lingfield.

And the real kicker? You now have to prove you can afford to bet. Hand over bank statements. Declare your personal finances. Reveal your inner fiscal workings as if applying for a mortgage—not to buy a house, but to back a 10/1 shot in the 3:30 at Newbury.

It’s the equivalent of a pub landlord asking you for three months’ worth of wage slips before allowing you to buy a pint. Imagine the carnage if this logic extended beyond gambling—filling out a tax return before being allowed to buy a pasty, presenting your stock portfolio before renting a deck chair in Brighton. Madness.

The BHA: Racing’s Governing Body or Just a Bookmaker’s PR Department?

At this point, we have to ask: who exactly is the BHA representing? Is it owners? Trainers? The everyday punter? Or is it simply locked in a tight embrace with the bookmaking industry, too timid to upset its commercial partners?

In theory, the BHA should be the sport’s loudest advocate, storming into meetings and fighting for racing’s survival with the force of an aggrieved punter who's just been done by a stewards' inquiry. Instead, it has all the fight of a damp sponge. It mutters about needing to protect the sport while simultaneously rolling over and allowing an absurdly broad and intrusive policy to crush its primary source of revenue.

If the bookmakers wanted affordability checks, the BHA should have been the first to ask: “For whom? Under what criteria? And what will be the consequences for racing?” But instead, it appears to have sat meekly in the corner, nodding along like a nervous intern in a boardroom, too afraid to challenge the nonsense unfolding before its eyes.

A Better Alternative Already Exists – And Bookmakers Know It

The great irony in all this? The technology to implement proper gambling harm assessments already exists, and the bookmakers have been using it for years.

Modern betting firms mine mountains of data on their customers—tracking everything from bet sizes and frequency to time of day and deposit patterns. They know when a punter is acting irrationally, when someone is chasing losses, when they’ve dramatically increased their stakes. In short, they already possess every tool necessary to flag problem gambling.

And yet, rather than using this sophisticated data analysis to target interventions where they’re actually needed, regulators have opted for the equivalent of a Soviet-era rationing system: treat everyone as a potential problem gambler and make them prove their innocence.

If a proper gambling harm assessment was implemented using the data bookmakers already collect, the consequences would be better for everyone:

• Genuine problem gamblers could be identified earlier and given real support, rather than letting them spiral into financial ruin.

• Responsible punters wouldn’t be subjected to absurd financial strip-searches just to place a bet.

• The betting industry wouldn’t drive customers into the arms of unregulated, offshore markets.

• Racing wouldn’t be losing billions in turnover because casual punters are sick of the hassle.

It’s the equivalent of having CCTV footage of a shoplifter but instead deciding to randomly frisk every customer who walks through the door, just in case.

A Slow Death for Racing

What happens next is painfully predictable. Punters are fed up, and some are drifting towards unregulated betting sites, where consumer protections don’t exist, and the only "affordability check" you’ll face is whether your credit card still works. Racing, meanwhile, is watching its revenue collapse at an alarming rate—a 25% drop in betting turnover, equating to a £3 billion loss over two years.

The BHA, despite being the supposed guardian of the sport, appears content to let it happen. One would expect its leadership to be banging down doors in Westminster, reminding politicians that a decline in betting revenue means a decline in prize money, fewer horses, fewer jobs, and ultimately, fewer race meetings. Instead, they sit there, playing the role of a polite, apologetic middleman, watching as British racing is quietly throttled by well-intentioned but catastrophically misguided regulation.

What Needs to Happen?

If racing is to survive, the focus needs to shift from "affordability" to "harm". Gambling harm assessments—actual behavioural analysis—should be the key measure, not whether someone earns enough to satisfy an arbitrary financial threshold. The idea that wealth alone dictates gambling risk is laughable. A reckless millionaire is far more dangerous than a careful working-class punter, yet under the current rules, it’s the latter who faces scrutiny.

And crucially, the BHA needs to grow a spine. It must stop sitting meekly on the sidelines and actually fight for the sport it claims to govern. That means challenging bookmakers, questioning regulators, and stating—loudly and unequivocally—that racing cannot survive if you treat every punter as a potential problem gambler.

Until then, British racing finds itself caught in an entirely avoidable tragedy: a sport that relies on betting, overseen by a regulator that’s killing betting, governed by an organisation too feeble to intervene. And all because someone thought "affordability check" sounded nicer than "pointless overreach".