This article is taken from the April 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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Forgive the bluntness, but I don’t think you can really afford that holiday you’ve booked this summer. You eat out far too often. And you drink way too much.

What’s it got to do with me? Well, I know a lot better than you how you should be spending your money. That’s the rationale behind the so-called “affordability checks” which have sprung up everywhere you try to place a bet and which threaten to destroy racing as a viable sport. Which is, of course, the intention.

Bookies face heavy fines if they don’t intervene when someone is found to be spending beyond their means

In my first column here, last May, I wrote that the gambling review was “due soon”. We are still waiting, but its anticipated affordability checks are already with us as a result of bookies running scared of demands by the Gambling Commission.

In 2020, the Commission said anyone spending more than the national average on betting should be asked for information “such as three months’ payslips, P60s, tax returns or bank statements”.

Bookies face heavy fines if they don’t intervene when someone is found to be spending beyond their means, so they are taking an ultra-cautious approach by demanding financial information from any regular punter, including me.

I have long had multiple accounts with bookies so I can take advantage of the best odds, but recently all bar three have demanded I supply my bank statements and tax returns before allowing me to bet. I refused.

A few weeks ago, Racing TV found that 22 per cent of those it asked had been asked for such financial details by bookies. Extrapolating from this and a similar Racing Post survey, it is clear this now affects hundreds of thousands of punters. Two thirds of those asked by the Racing Post said they would not provide their financial details; 55 per cent of those who had already been asked had, like me, refused.

This is a major crisis for horse racing, which depends on money from bookies to survive. It is estimated these checks will mean a loss of between £60 and £100 million a year in revenue. That would be terminal.

This is a major crisis for horse racing, which depends on money from bookies to survive

We should be clear about what lies behind this. It’s an ideological campaign by those opposed to gambling allied with animal rights activists who have long wanted to put an end to horse racing. It’s not a party political issue; the likes of Iain Duncan Smith are among the worst offenders.

They have created a moral panic, vastly exaggerating the deleterious impact of gambling and playing on the craven cowardice of those who ought to be resisting their claims. Even the Gambling Commission — which has effectively been captured by the ideologues — puts the problem gambling rate at no more than 0.3 per cent of the population. But when you drill down, a pattern emerges.

According to Public Health England, the problem rate for horse racing betting in shops is 3 per cent and online 3.7 per cent. But for online slot machines, casino or bingo games the figure is 8.7 per cent. In other words, horse racing punters are being punished and excluded despite there being no major problem with racing.

It’s an ideological campaign by those opposed to gambling allied with animal rights activists who have long wanted to put an end to horse racing

Last month, Rishi Sunak praised the £4 billion that horse racing generates for the economy: “I want to see British racing and breeding stay at the front of this global race in the years ahead,” he said. But the chance of that is zero if the gambling review isn’t radically different from the document expected.

At a basic level the review needs to assert that no one should be asked for private financial information by bookmakers other than in exceptional circumstances — and to make clear that there is next to no problem gambling focused on horse racing.

My hunch is that it will do no such thing, and that we are now witnessing the end of racing as we know it. Then again, years of betting have taught me always to expect the worst.