The Rational Bettor Is Dead – And Racing’s Still Holding the Murder Weapon

The Illusion of Symbiosis

To hear the BHA, The Betting and Gaming Council, Racing Post or the Horserace Bettors Forum talk about it, the bookmaker-racing relationship is some delicately balanced ecosystem – a benevolent partnership in which the betting giants provide the lifeblood, and racing delivers the product. A "shared destiny," they’ll say, as though William Hill is hand-rearing foals in Lambourn.

But this isn’t symbiosis – it’s parasitism with a press release.

Let’s stop pretending the betting industry is a passive participant in the sport’s fragility. Over the past decade, bookmakers have engineered a system in which margin is king, value is a threat, and any punter displaying even marginal competence is flagged, restricted, and eventually excluded. Not because of fraud or misuse, but because they win. That’s it. That’s the sin. Any sniff of a long term winning punter is quickly snuffed out. The rabid big corps bookmaker will kill you off faster than you could click on oddschecker. The gross margins are protected with every sneaky move or term they can incorporate, they will.

Racing, in its desperation to preserve the flow of Levy and media rights, not only tolerates this, it endorses it. The industry cosies up to the same operators that treat its own core customers as adversaries, then acts surprised when betting turnover stagnates, black market activity rises, and prize money dwindles faster than a Cheltenham day two forecast. It pays racing through the Levy Board and BHA to have an unpredictable low quality product as it increases bookmaker margins and therefore the levy take. The "ecosystem" is currently bio degrading by the nature of its financial structure. Punters are waking up and marching away to the black market whilst the industry acts as though the very people that funded them are serial criminals.

The Erosion of Rationality

There was a time – pre-2018, perhaps – when a moderately skilled punter could identify angles in the markets, bet into them, and make a modest profit over the year. Those days are over. Not because the sport has become less predictable or because punters have suddenly lost their edge, but because the economics of modern bookmaking no longer tolerate even small-scale, consistent winners.

In 2025, we inhabit a betting landscape that has weaponised margin to the point of absurdity. Overrounds on Class 5 handicaps routinely exceed 125%. Odds are shaped less by informed opinion and more by liabilities, algorithms, and fear. Promotions – once the standard hook for recreational turnover – are now opt-in, siloed by “customer segmentation,” and largely unavailable to anyone not losing steadily.

Let’s be clear: no serious punter is getting “Best Odds Guaranteed” on a price-steamed maiden at Yarmouth. They’re lucky if their bet isn’t subject to a 48-second approval process and limited to £2.37. This is not about affordability or responsible gambling. It’s about protecting a model that cannot accommodate informed play.

And with the proposed 21% Remote Betting and Gaming Duty, operators now have a cast-iron excuse to accelerate that trend. Margins must be protected. Winners must go. The ecosystem must remain – but only if it's composed entirely of losers.

Bookmakers Are Not Innocent Bystanders

It’s convenient for the major operators to act like victims of regulatory overreach. Affordability checks, tax hikes, and anti-gambling rhetoric have certainly created turbulence. But the idea that they are powerless in the face of falling racing turnover is laughable.

Bookmakers made their strategic choice years ago. They bet on gaming. The margins are better, the customers more docile, the revenue more stable. Horse racing, with its messy liquidity, regional complexity, and informed customer base, was always going to be the first asset left behind when head offices in Gibraltar or Dublin started trimming fat.

So now we see the effects. An increasingly illiquid win market. A complete collapse of place value. Price boosts on irrelevant races, while live betting is throttled to death by latency and caution. Skilled punters shut down, accounts subject to Kafkaesque appeals systems, and recreational bettors nudged away from racing altogether and into online blackjack where nobody ever hits back.

But here’s the kicker: racing still believes it must appease the bookmaker. It still thinks a tax increase or levy tweak will cause the operators to pick up their ball and storm off. This is absurd. The only reason many of these firms still trade racing markets is because of their commercial obligations under media rights deals and access to ready made mugs – not out of love for the sport.

And yet, we talk about “safeguarding the betting ecosystem” as if the modern sportsbook is some neutral facilitator. In reality, it’s a gatekeeper that actively engineers outcomes designed to reduce liquidity, reduce competition, and ultimately reduce the number of intelligent people betting on horses.

Tax Rise: The Final Nail

And now the Treasury wants to deliver a unified tax hike – a 21% Remote Betting and Gaming Duty across all remote gambling products. On paper, it looks like fiscal streamlining. In practice, it’s a blow to horse racing so sharp it could double as a gelding iron.

Let’s be crystal clear: this increase will not be absorbed. Bookmakers will pass it on, both through higher margins and by slashing their already reluctant commitment to horse racing. It will shrink turnover, reduce Levy contributions, decimate media rights payments, and worsen punter value. The very foundations of racing’s funding model – Levy + media rights – are directly threatened.

This tax rise won’t just “hurt racing.” It will accelerate its ongoing decline. It will hasten the closure of marginal fixtures, further erode prize money, and push yet more punters either offshore or out of the sport entirely.

And here's the brutal irony: it’s racing’s own leadership that has enabled this collapse. Through years of deferring to bookmakers and corporate racecourse groups, the BHA has facilitated a toxic partnership in which both sides – operator and track – have acted in naked self-interest, siphoning value from punters while contributing little of strategic substance to the long-term health of the sport.

This parasitic alliance – built on cosy deals, inflated media rights, and docile, mug punters treated as cannon fodder – has reached its logical endpoint. The hosts are dying, the parasites are eyeing the exits, and the only question is how long the industry will keep pretending this is sustainable.

Punters Want Betting, Not Bureaucracy

Today’s informed racing punter sees the truth. They aren’t just being asked to pay more for less – they’re being excluded entirely. Not because they cheat or scam or manipulate, but because they understand value. And in modern British betting, value is treated like a virus.

They also see the hypocrisy. While they are required to hand over payslips and explain their disposable income to bet £30 on a 7/2 shot, the same bookmakers are promoting “Bet Boosts” on roulette spins and virtual football games with gleeful abandon. The state talks about “protecting the vulnerable,” but the only people truly under protection are the margins of corporate bookmakers.

Meanwhile, the exchanges are atrophying, the independent bookie is all but extinct, and liquidity on non-feature races is so thin you’d be forgiven for thinking the market had shut early for tea. This isn’t a betting ecosystem – it’s a closed circuit with a one-way drain.

Racing: Stand Up or Stand Down

Enough.

If British racing has any ambition to survive, it must stop acting like a subsidiary of the gambling industry and start behaving like the proud, standalone sport it once was. That means standing up to the operators who treat its product like a loss-leader. That means reforming the Levy so that turnover – not just gross profits – drives funding. That means demanding a “Right to Bet,” so that success isn’t punished but respected.

And most of all, it means growing a backbone. Because self-interest will not solve this. The current patchwork of horsemen’s groups, racecourse cartels, and half-interested media lobbyists will not deliver salvation. We need a reset – in funding, in participation, and in purpose.

No more begging for scraps from firms who’ve made it clear they’d rather be flogging slots. No more pretending that racing and betting are equals at the table when one side sets the menu, collects the bill, and locks the door.

It’s time to fight for the people who make racing matter – the punters, the owners, the yards, the staff, the bettors who still bother to engage. And yes, that includes the profitable ones, the sharp ones, the ones who were told they weren’t welcome anymore. Because without them, the whole thing falls.

This tax hike isn’t just bad policy. It’s the final test of whether racing wants to live or be quietly embalmed inside a Coral app. Grow a spine, British racing. Because if you don’t, you won’t have much left to bet on.