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Gambling Act 2005 (Horserace Totalisator Board) Order 2007

I thank the noble Lord for those remarks. A story is told of the origins of the cartoon horseracing machines, which may help to illuminate the point the middle ground of which I think we are more or less agree on, and a glitch in the programme created by the bookmakers when the machines were first introduced into the shops in the first two weeks. The first horse that was seen to dash to the front immediately fell back into the body of the field, only to break into a run and win at the end. The bookmakers were being taken out by people betting on the first horse to be seen in the race while it ran at the outset. As a result, the programme was frozen after two weeks, and any horse that was first seen to go into the lead was programmed never to be able to win a race again. That is a demonstration of how far this whole system is capable of being corrupted by bookmaker intervention.