Account closures and restrictions are angering racing punters but there is an answer
Racing enjoyed its biggest win for many years in last month’s budget.The threatened harmonisation of duty rates for betting and gaming was not simply seen off, but routed, with the differential between the two rates significantly increased.As an added bonus, meanwhile, racing was excluded from the small rise in the duty rate for bets on football and other sporting events.Having celebrated the win, though, the next step is to ensure that the benefits are maximised.And since, in relative terms, racing has just become a more attractive product for bookmakers, what better moment could there be to address one of the major obstacles that many punters face when they want to bet on the horses?That barrier is account closures and restrictions on punters who are – or appear to be – sufficiently smart to make a long-term profit on their betting.
A punter tries to take an advertised price, sometimes for as little as £10 or £20, but the computer says no and offers a derisory alternative stake of a few pennies instead.Everyone in racing knows that it has been happening for many years.It makes a mockery of the Gambling Commission’s mission statement to ensure that gambling is “safe, open and fair”.And yet many of the sport’s keenest fans and form students are being told that their money is not wanted – in the regulated market at least – on a daily basis.This is all despite the fact that a potential remedy – a minimum bet rule (MBR) – has been operating in most Australian jurisdictions for a decade or more.
In Victoria, for instance, the home of the Melbourne Cup, off-course operators are obliged to lay an advertised price on “metropolitan” (ie.major) races to lose at least $2,000 (£995) on a win bet, while the minimum for non-metropolitan – or “bush” racing – is $1,000.Ladbrokes and Bet365 are among the well-known betting brands that operate successfully in Australia with an MBR in place.Yet the bookies have always resisted the introduction of a similar rule in the UK, claiming that it will impact on the bonuses and offers available to punters, such as “Best Odds Guaranteed” when a punter takes a price and the eventual SP is bigger.If that claim sounds strangely familiar, though, it might well be because a similar argument was put forward as a reason why duty rates in general – and the rate for gaming products like online slots in particular – should not be raised in the budget.
It was, according to Michael Dugher, the BGC’s chair, “just naive” for racing to think it would escape unscathed from a major hike in online gaming duty, or that the black market would not benefit from a subsequent increase in margins in the regulated sector.As other voices including the former prime minister Gordon Brown pointed out, however, the multinational gambling corporations are willing to pay 50% or more in duty on their gaming profits in some US jurisdictions.And despite all the dire warnings, not to mention the BGC’s schmoozing of Rachel Reeves and Labour MPs at conference, the chancellor effectively doubled online gaming duty, from 21% to 40%.The wheels, it seems, have come off the gambling industry’s once well-oiled lobbying machine.Predictions of impending doom no longer carry much weight, not least when there are case studies elsewhere to prove them wrong, so this is surely the moment for the Gambling Commission to grasp the nettle on restrictions.
Uttoxeter 1.00 Fingle Bridge 1.30 Carismatic Soldier 2.00 Baron Noir 2.30 Sole Solution 3.
00 Hara Kiri 3.33 Highbury HillNewcastle 3.18 Noss Mayo 3.55 Get An Attitude 4.30 Sound And Vision 5.
00 The Caltonian 5,30 Priapos 6,00 Concert Boy (nap) 6,30 Superior Council 7,00 Mister Sky Blue (nb) 7.
30 BeneficiaryThis does not mean that the black market is not an issue, but it is in everyone’s interests – the treasury included – to keep gambling turnover in the regulated sector,The budget also included £26m for the Gambling Commission over the next three years to tackle the threat from the unregulated sector, and in any case, nothing has done more to push punters towards unregulated firms over the past 20 years than punters being told that their business isn’t welcome,The MBR model is there in Australia for all to see, and the Gambling Commission should need no reminding about the ongoing unfairness of bookmakers refusing to take a bet,It is already long overdue, but the MBR’s right moment, perhaps, has finally arrived,
EU investigating Google’s use of online content for AI purposes; problems with Microsoft’s Copilot – business live
Newsflash: The European Commission has opened an antitrust probe into whether Google is breaching EU competition rules by using online content from web publishers and its YouTube service for artificial intelligence purposes.The EC says:The investigation will notably examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to such content, thereby placing developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage.The Commission is concerned that Google has used web publishers’ content without permission or compensation, both to create AI-powered services and to train its AI models.It explains:The content of web publishers to provide generative AI-powered services (‘AI Overviews’ and ‘AI Mode’) on its search results pages without appropriate compensation to publishers and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content. AI Overviews shows AI-generated summaries responsive to a user’s search query above organic results, while AI Mode is a search tab similar to a chatbot answering users’ queries in a conversational style
Britons face higher chocolate prices but average cost of Christmas dinner falls
The festive season may be less merry for those with a sweet tooth this year, as the price of chocolate has risen by nearly a fifth, according to research.Chocolate prices in Great Britain rose 18.4% on a year earlier in November, analysts at the market research firm Worldpanel found.However, the study showed the average cost of a Christmas dinner for four people has fallen by a penny to £32.46
EU opens investigation into Google’s use of online content for AI models
The EU has opened an investigation to assess whether Google is breaching European competition rules in its use of online content from publishers and YouTube creators for artificial intelligence.The European Commission said on Tuesday it will examine whether the US tech company, which runs the Gemini AI model and is owned by Alphabet, is putting rival AI owners at a “disadvantage”.“The investigation will notably examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to such content, thereby placing developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage,” the commission said.It said it was concerned that Google may have used content from web publishers to generate AI-powered services on its search results pages without appropriate compensation to publishers and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content.The commission said it was also concerned as to whether Google has used content uploaded to YouTube to train its own generative AI models without offering creators compensation or the possibility to refuse
Trump clears way for Nvidia to sell powerful AI chips to China
Donald Trump has cleared the way for Nvidia to begin selling its powerful AI computer chips to China, marking a win for the chip maker and its CEO, Jensen Huang, who has spent months lobbying the White House to open up sales in the country.Before Monday’s announcement, the US had prohibited sales of Nvidia’s most advanced chips to China over national security concerns.Trump posted to Truth Social on Monday: “I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security. President Xi responded positively!”Trump said the Department of Commerce was finalising the details and that he was planning to make the same offer to other chip companies, including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel. Nvidia’s H200 chips are the company’s second most powerful, and far more advanced than the H20, which was originally designed as a lower-powered model for the Chinese market that would not breach restrictions, but which the US banned anyway in April
The Breakdown | Pirates hope lure of Cornish Camelot will tempt franchise bargain hunters
Champ club have a plan to reach the top flight and hope investors will recognise their untapped potentialIt is too early to declare it the feelgood British sports story of the decade. There remains much work to do and a lot more money to raise. But to be in the tented clubhouse at the Mennaye Field in Penzance is to feel a flicker of something genuinely interesting. While the flame may be faint, the dream of a top-level Cornwall-based professional rugby team is still alive.Regular readers may recall embarking down this coastal path before
Sabastian Sawe: the marathon star on a mission to be drug tested as much as possible | Sean Ingle
Last week the world’s best marathon runner, Sabastian Sawe, looked me straight in the eye and told me “doping is a cancer”. Then he insisted he was clean. You hear such oaths and affirmations all the time. But, uniquely, Sawe recently backed up those words by asking the Athletics Integrity Unit to test him as much as possible.You see, Sawe believed he could break the world record in Berlin in September
Was 2025 Oscar Piastri’s best chance at an F1 title or a prelude to glory? | Jack Snape
Burning down the Baz-house is easy, but what comes after that for England? | Barney Ronay
‘Like a movie’: Lando Norris relives final lap to glory and partying till 6am as world champion
Account closures and restrictions are angering racing punters but there is an answer
Ross Byrne says escort defender crackdown could see locks converted to wings
McCullum’s ‘overprepared’ Ashes remark may prove England’s Bazball epitaph