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Gambling Act 2005 (Horserace Totalisator Board) Order 2007

I am sorry, I have not. I have a little way to go, but not far. On cartoon racing, I believe that the bookmakers should be called to account twice over. First, they should be required to recognise that it gives them a profit only because it coincides with the footfall created by racing and the funds should be included in the levy calculation. Secondly, I believe emphatically that the punter in the betting shop deserves that it should be brought within a strict set of controls which the DCMS should apply. I would want to see a complete exposure to an audit of the software system for every one of the cartoon racing devices put in. They do not fulfil the classification of a FOBT as offered with these instruments because there is a separation between the screen that shows the cartoon racing and the screen that offers the odds. This is not an integrated betting concept. It is a separation, which is where the villainy stands in terms of what the bookmakers are offering at this time. I call strongly on the Government to withdraw the instruments to this extent and to review urgently the introduction of new controls on cartoon racing to bring them fairly into the open so that the punters can understand them. As the noble Viscount said, we should not be disparaging about the people who occupy betting shops of a dark and dingy afternoon. It might not be our choice of an occupation, but perhaps we are rather more fortunate. The people who go to a betting shop of an afternoon many times are unemployed and perhaps, as was described, are not in the top economic quartile. They are there sometimes for comfort or protection against inclement weather, or because they are retired and bored in their domestic circumstances and are looking for relief elsewhere. But they are not, for all of those reasons, to be regarded as the needy and the greedy, or to be disparaged and left outside the care and protection of government. It is not the function of government to enhance the profits of bookmakers at the expense of level playing fields for the average man who walks into a betting shop of an afternoon. Such a man is just as deserving of our protection as anyone else in this community. On the strength of these statutory instruments, I do not think that the Government are getting it, and I call on them to withdraw the orders, which do not reflect the correct approach to cartoon betting in particular, and to introduce forthwith stringent and demanding requirements to comply with a set of standards that reflect the interests of the common man in the betting shop.