affordability checks - quite possibly the thin end of the wedge.

​In today’s Racing Post (08/03/23), Bill Barber, the excellent industry editor, gives a technical analysis of the present situation vis-à-vis the disgraceful, and, I suspect, illegal imposition (at least bordering on) of affordability checks on punters, those who are perhaps the backbone of British horse-racing.
I am not a gambler. Nor can I described as a bettor as I infrequently visit my local bookmaker and do not, and never have had, a betting account. For this reason, I have shied well-clear of the debate believing I had no justifiable foot to stand on to air my opinions. Yet, affordability checks do affect me, as indeed they may well in the near present intrude on the lives of people who have no interest in betting and horse racing.
Affordability checks are somewhat similar to the tactics of gangs in the East End of London post the 2nd World War, and the mobsters of New York that threatened shop, club and dance hall owners that if they ‘didn’t pay’ for protection, from whom it was rarely stated, they would find their premises raised to the ground. In this instance, the protection racket is organised by the Gambling Commission, its whispered threat of ‘do as we say or we will take away your licence and throw you out on the street’ as bone-chilling as the knuckleduster or sawn-off shotgun. The bookmakers, as would be expected, are too frightened to stand their ground and without apology pass on the ‘wishes’ of the Gambling Commission by way of imposing outrageous affordability checks on their customers, demanding evidence that they can afford to bet without sending their families into poverty, with the outraged punter having to hand-over to strangers details of their savings, investments, pensions, salaries, mortgages, etc etc. An unholy state of affairs that has all the hallmarks of draconian overreach.
All the while, racing, bookmakers and punters await the long-awaited publication of the government’s white paper setting out rules that must be applied by bookmakers to protect, largely from themselves, vulnerable gamblers and to, no doubt, lend them a helping hand towards counselling and a new life well away from the temptations of betting shops.
My fear is this: what is being enacted by government through the auspices of the Gambling Commission is a trial run with the objective of applying similar tactics and strategies on drinkers of alcohol, smokers and addicts of cream cakes, which will be easily achieved at the advent of the cashless society, which is already being prepared to be rolled out in 2025. Go to the World Economic Forum’s website if you believe me to be a tin-foil hat-wearer.
It sounds dystopian, doesn’t it? A plot lifted from a science fiction B-movie or second-rate novel. Yet, the Dutch government have legislation in place to throw farmers off their land and to return farmland to nature by 2050. A country famous for the vegetable and flowers it produces and sells around the world! Protesting farmers have been shot at by Dutch police, had their tractors overturned and the government have used propaganda and downright lies to vilify them and turn the public against them. Farmers: the enemy! Unbelievable!
It is my belief, though, that the delays in publication of the white paper is a sign that knowing itself to be as unpopular with the British people as the Dutch government is with farmers, the government are desperately seeking compromise, realising the threat to racing’s finances – the Gambling Commission deny advising bookmakers to impose affordability checks – is a threat to the £4-billion bonanza that goes to the Exchequer annually from horse racing and betting. They want to help stop people gambling away their savings but realise that the Gambling Commission are taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Bookmakers could help themselves by voluntarily removing online slot machines from their premises. I suspect this whole debate began with the installation of slot machines in betting shops, with bookmakers looking away while vulnerable people gambled their lives away feeding coins into these money-making machines. Get rid of these damn bookmakers games of chance money pits and the betting shop will overnight become more wholesome, more acceptable for the awful new world being constructed behind our backs.
One more thing: does anyone truly believe that bookmakers would willingly close the accounts of loyal customers, reducing their annual profits, if they were not told to do so, were not intimidated with the threat of unspeakable reprisals if they failed to do as they were asked? 
Someone should take one of the big bookmaking companies to court to seek legal opinion if the scope of affordability checks is fair, just and legal.