Politics
Calls for flat rate
Minister shies away from
Commission fees
In giving evidence to a committee of MPs, ABB chairman Warwick Bartlett has put forward the issues facing independent bookmakers.
ABB A
ssociation of British Book- makers (ABB) chairman Warwick Bartlett
has called for the Gambling Commission licence fees to be applied at a flat, per shop rate. While giving evidence at the Culture Select Com- mittee’s inquiry into gam- bling, Bartlett suggested that the Commission would have to switch to a flat rate anyway should the current trend of decline in the inde- pendent sector perpetuate. He told the committee: “If we look at the figure, say on bookmakers’ permits, in 1966 there were 11,253 and today there are about 1,200- half of those are racecourse bookmakers, so there are 519 betting shop operators. So the consolidation that has taken place is quite dis- tinct. If this consolidation continues and shops are continuing to close in the independent sector, how is the Gambling Commission going to raise its money? Under the current fee struc- ture they will lose that enhanced fee from the inde- pendent sector, so at some point they will have to go to a single shop fee.”
Bartlett made the point that overall the profitability
of the betting shop is in decline and quoted the example that an operator with six shops under the 1963 Act used to pay £300 plus a £25 renewal for three years, whereas now they are paying £39,000.
He added that other changes could be made to aid the independent book- maker: “Our smaller members ask that they can pay these Gambling Com- mission fees monthly - that would help them a lot - rather than having to pay thousands of pounds in one go. The other thing is if, during the course of a year, they go out of business and they have paid upfront to stay in business with the Gambling Commission there is no refund, which is unfair.”
ABB chief executive Dirk
Vennix said it was a difficult time for all retail betting businesses and called on the government to provide assistance to enable the industry to continue creat- ing more jobs and contribut- ing to local economies. He commented: “We also ask to put it in context that betting is a mainstream leisure activity, which is consumed safely by mil- lions of customers up and
WARWICK BARTLETT: ‘AT SOME POINT THEY WILL HAVE TO GO TO A SINGLE SHOP FEE’
GAMING MACHINES M
inister for gambling John Penrose has poured cold water on the idea of increasing the allocation of B2 gaming machines in betting shops. Speaking at the annual convention of BACTA, the coin-op trade body, Penrose suggested that discussion would have to be extensive with watertight research before he was pre- pared to move on the number of gaming machines in any type of premises.
down the country. I think it is fair to say that. In that context, we are therefore saying treat us like any other retail sector on the high street and therefore reduc- tion of taxation and new reg- ulations should be considered. I am thinking about the MGD rate that is coming in for electronic gaming machines and also thinking about looking at the gaming duty in the context of online gambling operators. “We honestly and gen- uinely believe that there is a strong case for economic growth that we could fulfil if we are given the assistance by, for instance, DCMS, also the Gambling Commission has been mentioned in terms of a champion role. They could help us, I think, on the business growth agenda. We also think they could support us in terms of protecting us against any further unnecessary taxa- tion and regulation.”
ANALYSIS
While the noises emanating from government suggest that an increase in B2 machines is unlikely, the ABB still suggested an increase in the limit of four machines per shop would be appropriate. However, Warwick Bartlett was quick to use his own situation to reassure the Select Committee that this wouldn’t mean a massive increase across the board. “I have one shop and I used to have three machines,” he told them. “I now have two because it was unprofitable to have the third machine so we took it out. But there are some shops in London, like for example Edgware Road, I would think that they would probably need more machines.”
He said: “If you’re the minister you want to know that if you increase this type of machine and decrease the numbers of that type of machine what will happen to problem gambling if you do. And at the moment there is no person I can turn to, no corpus of research, no author- itative body to say ‘you know what, if you change the way that this particular kind of machine is operated or in a particular kind of environment, then you will reduce the level of problem gambling or raise it’. And that is bad for all of us. “You will have heard very recently that I’ve been receiving calls from the bookmaking industry to increase the number of B2 machines. I cannot increase anyone’s compliment of machines at the moment. Not generally, not broadly, without solid evidence unless we are all col- lectively prepared to go back into the debate that sur- rounded the 2005 Gambling Act. And I suspect that nobody hear likes the idea of that.” Meanwhile Penrose’s boss, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, has described the Gambling Act as ‘inconsistent’, although he ruled out any immediate changes. Speaking to the Culture Select Committee, Hunt said: “I think the truth is that it has not been a success and, as a result, in things like casino policy we are in kind of limbo at the moment which I don’t think is healthy. There are a number of unanswered questions in terms of the way the Gambling Act is being implemented.”
He suggested that concerns over problem gambling increases following liberalisation in other countries were enough to caution against further gambling legisla- tion. “That is the big question that needs to be addressed before any progress is made,” he said.
machine increase
JOHN PENROSE: ‘I CANNOT INCREASE ANYONE’S COMPLIMENT OF MACHINES’
Consultation prompts integrity discussion CONSULTATION I
n a timely consultation, the Gambling Commission has announced it is seeking further information and views on a number of issues relating to fair and open betting. In particular, the regulator is seeking opinions on the range of the circumstances which are relevant in considering whether using inside infor- mation for betting is misuse of that information. By
‘misuse’ the Commission mean actions that would be considered ‘substantially unfair and/or cheating or fraud depending on the context’.
Among the other issues also raised within the dis- cussion document is betting via third parties, an opera- tor’s policy on employee gambling and the power to void bets. When releasing the paper, the Commission
16 BettingBusinessInteractive • NOVEMBER 2011
said: “The issues are rele- vant to both sports and non- sports betting, and we seek views from all those with an interest in the integrity of sports and in betting on both sports and non-sports event. We invite views on what is ‘fair and open’ in the betting context and are also considering the application of appropriate safeguards and sanctions by betting operators, Sports Govern-
ing Bodies (SGBs), employ- ers, the Gambling Commis- sion and other enforcement bodies such as the police.” The deadline for submis- sions is 11 January 2012. As well as the use of infor- mation, the Commission also wants to discuss type of bets. While it says that so far it has not considered it necessary to restrict the type of bets that the opera- tors may accept, there are
two aspects which it wishes to keep under review. It explained: “Whether there should be further informa- tion made available to betting customers about novelty bets, about the fact that there may be individu- als betting on them with inside information, and that novelty bets are in principle more at risk of manipulation. “We have not identified a trend of betting integrity
cases being connected in particular to different types of bets. However, should we in the future establish a pattern of a higher number of betting integrity cases relating to different types of bets, we may consider it more appropriate to restrict the bets than dedicate sig- nificant resource to tackling the issue after the fact. This is however, not an area we are looking at currently.”
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