For his first update of 2026, Policy and Advocacy Manager Jack Barton runs through some of the live issues that the BHA’s Corporate Affairs team are actively working on.

Affordability checks – Save Our Bets

When the nature of your work is reliant upon political timing, best laid plans can quickly change.

And our understanding that the Gambling Commission (GC) Board is planning to formally sign off its “Financial Risk Assessments” pilot in May has put us firmly back on the campaign trail. With no public update on its progress – or indeed on NatCen’s independent evaluation of the pilot – since May 2025, it was news that came as somewhat of a surprise.

Ahead of the Grand National this weekend, the sport has come together to make clear its opposition to what are more commonly known as affordability checks. Yesterday more than 400 people from racing and cross party MPs/Peers signed an open letter to Lisa Nandy MP, the Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, urging her to instruct the Gambling Commission to stop the roll-out of the checks this spring.

Racing and betting have also joined forces with The Sun newspaper’s ‘Save Our Bets’ campaign and today we have launched an online portal for racing fans and punters to write to their local MP asking them to put pressure on the Government to halt the checks.

Why are we doing this?

According to betting operators who have worked on the GC’s pilot of checks, which has been running for more than 18 months, the credit reference agencies (CRAs) used are obtaining vastly different results for the same customer and an insufficient level of data to profile customer risk. It means that if these checks were implemented now they would not be entirely ‘frictionless’ for punters.

It would mean some would still be required to hand over personal financial documents such as payslips and bank statements, but at new, lower thresholds than the current 2024 Voluntary Industry Code.

As the BHA and racing have outlined consistently since the publication of the 2023 Gambling White Paper – including in our ‘Right to Bet’ campaign that year which saw over 100,000 people sign our petition which led to a debate in Parliament – affordability checks as they stand would have severe consequences for the sport’s finances.

And in allowing the GC to implement the checks in their current form, the Government would also directly contradict its own position. Previous DCMS Minister Stuart Andrew MP said checks would only be implemented if they could be proven to be “truly frictionless.”

This position has since been adopted by the current Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross, who said in January 2025:”While I am clear we do want to have these checks to help address problem gambling, I’m also clear financial risk checks need to be and can be proportionate. I believe this is possible – frictionless, near-instantaneous checks, a system which is better for customers, better for the betting industry and better for racing.”

Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) modelling, as covered recently in the Racing Post, showed how damaging the impact of affordability checks could be on racing’s finances, as well as the overall betting experience for our fanbase.

With net loss thresholds set at £1,000 in 24 hours, and £2,000 over 90 days, approximately 120,000 racing bettors would face document checks, with 96,000 racing bettors then stopped from betting at the upper threshold, and nearly 45,000 of those bettors then taking their business to the illegal market.

This would cost the racing industry £13.2m in Levy payments, with further heavy financial consequences for media rights payments and sponsorship arrangements with betting operators. We cannot accept this further damage to racing’s finances, especially in a world where Levy reform is not being pursued by the Government – despite having previously agreed to a deal – and where the wider betting industry is being hit by higher taxes and regulation.

Piloting state-mandated affordability checks as proposed in the White Paper was the right thing to do. But a pilot exists to ascertain whether a new policy will work, and it is not clear that the pilot has shown that frictionless checks are yet a reality.

Since the pilot began in 2024, it has been overtaken by events outside the process, namely the rapidly increasing growth of the gambling black market. The Treasury itself acknowledged the threat of illegal betting in the 2025 Budget by handing £26m to the GC to tackle its growth.

Adding further regulation to the regulated betting industry – and friction for those who just want to place a bet – will only accelerate illegal betting and suck more money away from the legal market, the Treasury coffers and the sport of horseracing. Even the Conservative Party, who initially advanced this policy, now recognise that.

It is why we are once again asking the Government to reconsider its policy on affordability checks and pause their implementation until they can be guaranteed to be fully frictionless. This is a legacy policy from a previous Government. It is perfectly acceptable for a government to believe it is not bound by the decisions of its predecessor. This Labour Government would be congratulated for taking that approach.

We hope that those who follow our sport, and those who work within it, will support this campaign and voice their opposition to a well-meaning but flawed policy that will only put further pressure on racing’s finances.

Conclusion of the Levy review

DCMS published a Written Ministerial Statement in the House of Commons prior to Easter recess confirming that the Government has closed its review of the Horserace Betting Levy and that there will be no increase in the current rate of ten per cent. As Brant outlined in his statement following the announcement, it was a frustrating but not unexpected outcome.

The Government committed to reviewing the Levy in the 2023 Gambling White Paper. In doing so, it stated it would ensure that British racing had the “appropriate level of funding”, recognising that there would be a financial impact on the sport from other proposals in the White Paper including affordability checks.

It quickly became clear that the preference of the Department was for a negotiated solution and despite a deal being reached in May 2024 which would have seen that Levy rate raised to 11.5% – with 1% of this ringfenced for a new growth fund to market and promote the sport – the early General Election scuppered its implementation.

With the 2025 Budget then providing what BGC CEO Grainne Hurst described as a “hammer blow” for the betting industry, it became evident that DCMS was unwilling to countenance Levy reform at a time when operators would be particularly unwilling to contribute more to racing.

Racing will be working with betting to fully understand the impact of tax and regulatory changes on the sector in the months and years ahead but equally, racing continues to face our own stiff economic headwinds and reform to the Levy will be necessary in the longer term to put British racing on a secure financial footing.

While the timing may not currently be right, we will continue to work hard to make sure the Government understands this. And we will be monitoring the evidence case ahead of any future look into whether the Levy mechanism is providing the correct level of support for British racing.

Scottish and Welsh elections

Voters go to the polls in both Wales and Scotland next month and it looks like we are heading for a change in Government in at least one of the devolved administrations. While polling suggests the SNP is almost certain to win the election, in Wales it now seems inevitable that for the first time since 1997 Labour will not be returning to power, unless they are a junior partner in a coalition to secure a parliamentary majority.

Plaid Cymru are leading the polls in Wales with Reform UK not far behind. With a high number of new Senedd members set to be elected in May, our Cross-Party Group for Horseracing will be seeking to build a number of new connections that will see 96 members of the Senedd elected instead of 60.

Ahead of the elections we will be briefing candidates in key racing constituencies in Wales and are working with Scottish Racing to replicate this process in Scotland.