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On-course Betting

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) on selecting this subject for debate in the week of the Cheltenham festival, where the public face of racing is at its best. We know that jockeys are trying and that horses are trying. The crowd, the atmosphere and the craic are a great advert for racing. I would love to be able to report that I managed to pick the 40-1, the 50-1 and the 16-1 winners from yesterday, but sadly I did not, although I do have a fancy for a horse called Finger On The Pulse in the 4 o’clock, which might be worth an each-way bet today. I recognise that that statement could come back to haunt me, as this debate is being recorded. The horse racing and gambling industry is at a crossroads. Allegations of fixed races, jockeys being charged and horses being doped do not present a positive image of the racing and gambling industry. My comments will concentrate on Betfair. Gambling is big business in the UK, generating £50 billion every year. Betfair takes up to 5 million bets a day—an astonishing number—and it takes those bets on the premise that every punter has a fair and fighting chance of winning, but how many people realise that they might be placing bets after the result is known, the race has been won, or the goal has been scored? That, to be frank, is where Betfair comes into disrepute. Punters can be in a bookmakers or at home watching a so-called live transmission, not realising that the pictures are subject to a delay of six or even seven seconds. That is a long time in a horse race and even longer in a dog race, where the dog from trap 1 can be past the winning post when the rest of the dogs are not even at the final bend. I pay tribute to the News of the World campaign, which has highlighted the problem in recent months. It recently showed two pictures: one from terrestrial television and one from SIS—Satellite Information Services. On both the televisions, the time was exactly the same. On one of the televisions, the favourite and its market rival were coming to the last jump; that was on the delayed screen. On the real screen, which was showing the actual time of the race, the favourite had fallen at the last. People were betting in running on the favourite losing. People who knew that the favourite had fallen were betting on that. Many punters who were betting on the favourite did not realise that it had fallen at the last hurdle. Clearly, someone who is betting in running and watching the race on a delayed screen is at a major disadvantage to someone who is at the track or someone watching on a different monitor. As I said, the problem is more pronounced in dog racing, where we are talking about one length per second—people can imagine the consequence of a six or seven second delay. Horse race betting is about studying form. It is about watching the horses in the paddock and being aware of the breeding. It is about the punter versus the bookie, not about a punter versus a punter, particularly when one individual has an in-built advantage. Horse race betting is about identifying the winner before the race. It is not about betting to lose. It is not about betting in running when an individual could, frankly, be cheated out of his money. A constituent of mine, Henry Spurway, was a traditional bookmaker in Scotland who with his company, Easibet, entered into partnership with Betfair in October 2002. He was not aware of these issues. He got the first licensed betting exchange in the UK and initially the concept was very successful, but problems associated with in-running betting and betting to lose lost him a substantial amount of money in a relatively short time. He has initiated a campaign, which I support, to ban in-running betting and backing to lose. Henry can be contacted at henryspurway.co.uk. The problems that I have described apply not only to horse racing and dog racing, but to all sports. Let us imagine Tiger Woods on the final green, looking to birdie to win a tournament. I am watching a screen that is showing in accurate time him making that putt. Someone else is watching a screen on which the pictures are delayed by five, six or seven seconds. If know first whether Tiger Woods has birdied that hole or missed that putt, I have an advantage over other people who are betting on the outcome. That applies to football and the taking of a penalty kick; it applies to cricket and tennis—indeed, all sports are affected and it is totally unacceptable. Betfair claims that 400,000 punters use its system. How can that number of individuals be policed? In The Times a few weeks ago, on 20 February, Alan Lee stated:"““I am equally uncomfortable about Betfair patting themselves on the back for wrong-doers being brought to task. For while it is true that the name-sharing agreement between Betfair and the Horse Race Authority has aided the detection of corruption, this inconveniently ignores the fact that such corruption has first been facilitated by the betting exchanges. Peter Savill, in his time as chairman of the British Horse Racing Board, likened the scenario to a shopkeeper leaving his doors unlocked every night whilst also installing security cameras.””" Mark Tompkins, trainer and chair of the Newmarket Trainers Association, said on 25 February that"““if we had no betting exchanges a paper trail would not be necessary as people wouldn’t be betting to lose. If someone got rid of exchanges tomorrow, he’d be doing racing a big favour.””" He also said in the article:"““I’d prefer to see no betting exchanges. Hong Kong, for instance, won’t have them.””" Hong Kong is one of the leading betting arenas in the world. My predecessor as MP for Livingston, Robin Cook, said that in life he enjoyed two thumps—the thump of ballot boxes going on to a table at the end of an election night, and the thump of hooves on a race track anywhere in the UK. I share Robin’s love and passion for horse racing. In-race betting and betting to lose are damaging racing’s image. Those practices have been described as a cheat’s paradise and I do not disagree with that description. It is time that they were banned.