The chairman of the Racecourse Association, Maggie Carver, is calling for UK-based bookmakers to commit more investment in betting on horse racing. The sport’s very future is intrinsically linked with income from wagering. Racing was, of course, the mainstay of bookmakers for many years until the growth in popularity of betting on sports like football and golf.
Earlier this year, the RCA, along with a number of other interested parties, set up the Racing Authority to replace the Horserace Betting Levy Board. The latter was previously responsible for the funding of racing via contributions, arranged through the UK government, from bookmakers. But the system has always been flawed and a consistent bone of contention. Racing believes it has been undervalued while nothing that affects a bookmaker’s bottom line will ever gain universal support in the betting industry.
The new Racing Authority, headed up by former UK government minister Sir Hugh Robertson, is designed to grant racing more control over its spending. However, ahead of the official roll-out next year, Carver believes that the betting industry still needs to make a larger contribution to racing in order to ensure its longevity and expand existing markets, boosting revenue in the process. A new Betting Liaison Group has been set up in the hope that it will form the basis for a new and constructive relationship with bookmakers. By that, the RCA chairman means she wants racing to get a bigger slice of the betting cake.
Carver has said that the introduction of the new levy scheme in April 2017 was a major milestone for the RCA, helping to generate a total of £95m, together with £4m from the previous scheme, in the year to March 31, 2018. This had accommodated an extra £8m in prize money in lower-class races and generated a further £4m for training and other projects but Carver warns that more is needed to encourage continued growth.
The comments echo those of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) chief executive Nick Rust, who has suggested betting on racing will have a larger role to play after new maximum stakes are introduced on fixed-odds betting terminals. However, even the quickest 5f races take longer than a turn on a fruit machine and, in these days of instant gratification, that is too long for many gamblers, addicts and non-addicts.
Some bookmakers have come to racing’s rescue, however, with William Hill signing on-course deals with Jockey Club Racing and Go Racing Yorkshire among others. Coral have also extended its deal to sponsor the Eclipse and others could follow if the lobby to limit the advertising of in-play betting on TV gains momentum.
