![]() ![]() Those understandably concerned with the harm done to individuals by excessive gambling are gaining an ever stronger political voice. In the quest for votes, politicians have become readier to tune in with animal welfare lobbies, voicing opposition not only to the use of the whip but to racing animals at all for entertainment. Now parliament’s attitude to racing and to the betting industry profits it depends on for its finances has become suspicious, verging on the hostile. Alas, the horse ran a stinker, Le Marchant had a row with the jockey in the unsaddling enclosure and we finished up eating takeaway pizza from a car boot in a Holiday Inn carpark - an early lesson in politicians’ promises. He planned to treat the party to dinner at the Waterside Inn at Bray with the proceeds of its expected victory. I played hookey from Westminster as a political correspondent one day to join him watching his horse at Windsor races. One of the last was the generously convivial Tory whip Spencer Le Marchant. In his later years Churchill enjoyed racing, with the grey Colonist II winning 13 races in his chocolate and pink colours, but few MPs in recent decades have had any involvement with the racing industry or been racehorse owners. ![]() Parliament’s interest in racing and betting since has been spasmodic at best. His legislation insisted there should be ‘no television, radio, music, dancing or refreshments on the premises’. Rab Butler, the home secretary who oversaw the introduction of betting shops, was certainly no enthusiast, saying that ‘someone leaving a betting shop should feel like they are leaving a brothel’. ![]() Jack Grealish and the cult of feminine men The Jockey Club, several of whose politically connected leading members were suspected of being in hock to the bookmakers, had opposed such a monopoly, despite the Tote having effectively been initiated by Winston Churchill’s Racecourse Betting Act of 1928. Vigorous lobbying by the gambling industry, with the Mirabelle restaurant and the Hyde Park Hotel dining room becoming extensions of the House of Commons canteens, had ensured that the alternative idea of a Tote monopoly was beaten off. Everything especially changed on when the first licensed betting shops - famously described by bookmaker John Banks as ‘a licence to print money’ - were opened. It is hard to remember now that we have lottery outlets in almost every newsagent and betting shops in every high street, but until 1960 it was illegal to bet anywhere in Britain except on a racecourse or dog track. Representatives from Paddy Power Betfair, William Hill, Sky Bet and bet365 agreed that their firms hadn’t done enough to tackle problem gambling after Dan Taylor of Flutter Entertainment, Paddy Power Betfair’s parent company, acknowledged: ‘The industry has got things wrong and has caused harm to individuals. Sorry is allegedly the hardest word to say - so Carolyn Harris, chair of the all-party parliamentary group studying gambling-related harm, scored a significant success recently by extracting apologies from a number of leading gambling-industry executives about the damage caused by their business. ![]()
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