Affordability checks in gambling need a rethink when even proponents are calling for pause

Gambling Commission set to rubber-stamp new regulations which could inflict irreparable damage on the racing industry

James Noyes, one of the initial proponents of affordability checks for gamblers, has issued an urgent call for a pause in their implementation. Stuart Andrew MP, the gambling minister in the last government and also a former supporter of checks, agrees with him. The British Horseracing Authority has suggested that implementation could cost the industry £250m annually in revenue as punters refuse to supply personal financial information to gambling operators and shift to the unregulated black market instead.

And yet, at a board meeting scheduled for Thursday, the Gambling Commission is expected to ignore the rising tide of concern and rubber-stamp the formal introduction financial risk assessments, as the Commission calls them. Tens of thousands, and conceivably hundreds of thousands, of punters with licensed UK firms could soon be required to provide documentation on salary or assets before they can continue to gamble, despite initial promises – from Andrew, among others – that the process would be “frictionless” for all but a minority.