Tag: Horse racing

FROM A LAND OF TIC TACS, TO THE DIGITAL AGE

Many of you will have read, no doubt, of an overpayment made to a ‘customer’ at York races. The overpayment amounted to ten times what the punter had won, and he stuck his hand out, without shame, to collect what wasn’t due to him

To me? Well, it was what online we can, and do win, in a dog race, in terms of cost. But to the long standing member of staff on track, it was a crushing incident. Calling his integrity, and competence, despite an unblemished record, into sharp question.

Of course, any question of malfeasance on the part of any member of my team, is fanciful. Not up for debate. Predictably, a few twitter idiots tried to portray it as such. Some will say anything for effect. What angered me was the blazen manner in which this ‘customer’ took the money, without care for the effect on my people. It’s morally wrong. And for those who argue on Twitter for fairness between bookmaker and punter? Two blacks never have made white.

I was going to call out the punter, we have seen him before, and we will see him again no doubt. He needs to know what decent people think, and plenty weighed into the debate in that vein. And we will pursue him, until he does the right thing.

There were a few who speculated, without foundation, as to the lawful position here. Some argue that what amounts to theft is excusable, because it was gained off of a bookie. For those interested, the law of legal restitution would guarantee the return of funds handed out, which were errant. You cannot just accept monies not due to you. Romantic notions dispelled.

What was notable even graphic was the level of vitriol from mostly anonymous twitterati. It was clear some people had posted the comment I made on Twitter in various football, and bot trading based forums, and the like, and the anonymites came out in force to vent.

Of course almost none of these individuals bet with me either on track where this occurred nor online. Most of those who commented gamble, however. They were venting into modern bookmaking attitudes. Nothing personal from many.

Most gambling these days takes place between three or four supergiants in the betting world controlling more than 90% of the market so we as independence of very much are very much hostage to their behaviour. We are tarred with the same brush. Yes, there is some common ground in the world of online between Geoff Banks Online, for example, and Bet365. But the crossovers in behaviour are modest. For instance, we pick up the telephone to clients, and we are not licensed in China

Punters these days broadly fall into two categories, and we must understand why so many are disaffected.

The first is what one would describe as genuine punters, some of whom profit from their gambling, by a combination of skill and hard work. Analysing form and beating the bookmaker essentially on their odds. I fully understand and sympathise with this group of gamblers when they complain that they are either not paid on time , or cannot get their bets on because they are winners. 

Bookmakers should expect people to win off them – after all it is a win and lose game. But times have changed and today’s corporate bookmaker has grown decidedly cynical. They view their business much like an accountant, only answerable to shareholders, and short term gain. This of course has made them ambivalent to the criticisms they so often receive, in this vein.

Little wonder the modern brand of anti gambling zealots prosper in such an environment, both gamblers, and media won’t support what they see as a predatory industry. 

But is it as simple as the evil gambling empire, and we are all callous? Because if bookmakers reduced their bottom line, restricted less punters, would our PR improve markedly?

The short answer is no. The problem has become insurmountable.

As an independent we do not banish winning customers to the ether. It is simply bad policy,and we accept both winners and losers equally, because we know in balance we are still going to make substantial profit. To some, such a statement appears without logic, but it is central to our business plan. Annually some 30% of our client base show a profit. On track at York, we were the ONLY bookmaker betting to a 1/4 the win odds in handicaps, with the same win odds. Noone praises us for acting different.

There is a second group however that has grown up with the advent of betting exchanges, trading tools, and advanced websites highlighting bookmakers odds in real time, using scalping bots, to gain a commercial edge. Our odds are compared against the exchanges to the second against exchanges. These tools are highly advanced and give these bot traders a massive competitive advantage against the modern day bookmaker, and to retain them as customers would be commercial suicide full stop.

In Broad terms people employing these methodologies, whichever is there favoured trading medium, from actual software, to whatsapp groups, almost 100% guarantees the user a long term profit by beating the bookmaker on odds in every trade. This never used to be true. To understand the problem, you need to accept this point.

To put bot trading into perspective it’s like walking into Waitrose filling up your shopping trolley every day and walking out without paying, and expecting the supermarket to welcome you with open arms for the rest of time. 

For big corp employing highly advanced trading software to counter bot traders, they can readily identify such individuals extremely quickly, sometimes before the user places a bet! For the Independent sector, however, we are mostly down to a system of hand management of accounts. Over the years my own company has become far more skilled employing Excel based tools and the like to analyse our customers pattern of behaviour, not only to control their gambling levels, but also to identify customers who routinely best the firm at the odds. With experience – comes experience.

And when you beat the bookmaker consistently and we are talking not less than 90% of every wager that is placed,  you will profit in your gambling, sometimes very substantially

My point in this is to explain to people that aren’t very informed about gambling these days that the world has changed. the age of Tic Tacs and bookmakers that never turn down a bet, died when the betting exchanges exploded into the market and created an army of bot traders, with opportunities to guarantee profit from every bet they placed. How this is managed, by the users concerned, is up to the user. Some play the long game, and accept losses, as would a bookmaker, but by consistently beating the odds, they generably create more wealth than straight up arbing

I sometimes hear some media types, who throw a blanket over the entire community of gamblers, as if they are all victims of predatory tactics. This is an incredibly naive stance. The world of bookmaking is fundamentally different since Steven Little took on all comers. It is an online product, and matters are governed by sophisticated online practices, on both sides. Elements of the media and racing pods need to wise up.

So how do we, as a company, deal with such traders, many of whom of course are a collection of accounts amassed quite often by one individual. This is the practice known as ‘multi-accounting.’ People being paid so a super trader can gain access to many bookmaker accounts. The advanced trader, in this case garnering many clone accounts can make hundreds of thousands of pounds, even millions, in profit every year.

It is a constant battle between today’s bookmaker and these super traders to expunge them from our systems. It is a new war, with new rules

My own company policy is never to offer a wager to any individual which is insulting. Such as I hear about constantly. The Bet365 – £3.65 joke. What we will seek to do is control when such accounts can wager at earlier prices thereby levelling the playing field, to such a degree that the trader loses his commercial advantage over us. The job of the bookmaker is to lay the right price, for the weight of money and selection. If todays cyber tools mean that even an army of staff working our website cannot begin to compete with the bots scanning our markets and pages in real time, every market and selections (there are 165 betting opportunities in every premier league game for example) then we have to manage such customers by limiting their access to odds, until nearer the ‘off.’ They still get a bet on, and a decent one, but at a fair market price, reflective of the w.o.m. My business ethos is to lay a bet. Not lay a bet at the wrong odds over 90% of the time. 

There will, naturally, be the odd village idiot, who argues that bookmakers should ‘lay every bet at the price advertised.’ Such individuals, residing in the cesspit that is Twitter, haven’t morphed since the world wide web appeared

Of course when we time manage an individual account on prices-we very often find the account becomes inactive because the commercial advantage has been removed. It is incredibly rare that we close an account, nor make them starting price only

Are some people caught in this bot trader net unfairly – when they are genuine hard working form judges? Yes there will be examples of individuals like that, who have been restricted.  The system for eradication of bot traders isn’t bullet proof.

How accurate are we in practices to hold such customers to later odds? In practice it proves, in the vast majority of cases to be a very easy case of management. Most traders beat the odds in 100% of cases. They’re greedy. Or part of a multi accounting group, where the tricks are a constant across the community – like fake utility statements. It is childlike in its approach, but for them, ‘profit at all costs’ is the mantra. They’re not so different from the bookmakers they criticise, for ‘restricting’ them

Most customers in practice disappear quietly off to another gambling firm after a change of account terms, but some individuals inevitably turn to Twitter to vent their frustration at an avenue of income which has now been closed down.

When they do, to protect their identity to other bookmaker targets, they choose anonymity. Now you can say what you like about gambling companies and their practices, and very often the ventings are riddled with expletives and insults! They follow each other, with like minds. They become inured to their point of view. Everyone they follow agrees with them, except me, of course, i’m afraid I don’t follow the narrative of silence which grips other gambling companies

  

So I understand the vitriol from both quarters, who couldn’t care less if we gave some punter too much money. The circumstances I have outlined above have created an environment in which bookmakers have never been so unpopular.  I don’t condone some of the behaviour of big corp, and those that view that follow me no I am highly vocal at what I see as unfair business practices from time to time, but all bookmakers, to differeing degrees, simply have to remove certain elements from their books, in the online world.

But let us be absolutely clear about one thing in the world of betting exchanges the age old battle between bookmaker and punter has radically changed, and not for the better

Inevitably there will be a few individuals who will claim they are not traders that they’re particularly clever that beating the bookmakers odds through skill. Such folk tell each other they’re ‘punters.’ which in many cases is a fantasy.

I’m afraid in that regard you are on a losing wicket because as the decades have gone past bookmakers have become highly competent in spotting bot traders. When you beat the odds 100% of the time? That’s neither luck nor skill on your part, or incompetence on the part of the bookmaker. A price can change in a dog card in a second from 5/1 to 5/2. Digging out that rick for a bookmaker faster than an exchange can change is practicably impossible.

So, I hope the above is helpful. I accept the vitriol will continue, from some. Like a car driver, flicking V signs from the relative anonymity of their vehicles, Twitter offers a platform to swear at the world, even if you’re normally ‘quite a nice chap’

It is time for everyone to grasp the nettle of realism, because the practice of management of those engaged in any form of trading isn’t going to end soon. I see some argue for a minimum bet offered rule. This may well solve the issue for some folk, but for all it would certainly lead to a huge rise in market overrounds. Basically everyone loses. I believe in competitive odds, plenty of returns to my customers. That is what keeps people fully engaged

Related, I would comment on one other, rather uninformed debate. In forty years of bookmaking, I’ve never avoided paying out for any return, that includes those who amuse themselves with the Sheffield greyhounds tale. Those punters, – well more accurately multi accounters, were settled. Several individuals backing 5 different dogs in yankees at the same time and odds, aren’t random. People got paid however, and it amuses me to see some individuals naively chatting about something they have little knowledge thereof. One should take caution in what you post online ‘as fact.’

It suited business to keep those operating multiple accounts guessing, that if they were dug up, their bets would be rejected, although in practice we pay up and move them on. I’ve chosen not to comment, the topic grew dull some years ago

But I say this to anyone thinking of landing big coups at flapping dog tracks, by the use of multiple accounts? There’s always the danger you might not get paid. We have rules and we keep them simple. If you expect the bookie to play fair, Then you have to accept some simple rules for the digital age, and not act as if they shouldn’t apply to you

one man – one account

Good luck to all

The moral collapse of the gambling commission

Great Britain: Regulation – the moral collapse of the Gambling Commission

For those with an inclination to learn, this week’s events offer the Gambling Commission a valuable lesson in authority. The market regulator exercises a coercive authority, mandated by Parliament, over anyone who holds a licence to provide betting or gaming services in Great Britain. Where others are concerned, it must rely on moral authority – but this commodity has been all but exhausted by its own actions.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister published on Monday, a succession of activists, politicians and researchers (categories that have become increasingly indistinct), openly flouted the Commission’s authority while the ink was still dry on its guidance for how results from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain can and cannot be used. In what can only be considered a triumph of hope over experience, the Commission had promised that the issuing of its guidance document would curb the tendency of campaigners to misuse Official Statistics; but the Peers for Gambling Reform (‘PGR’) letter to Sir Keir Starmer (or ‘Sir Kier’ as these Peers appear to have dubbed him) showed this trust to be misplaced. The GSGB is not due out until this morning – but the signatories to the open letter jumped the gun by referring to “a higher picture of gambling harm than existed previously” (a claim that contravenes the guidance regardless of its attribution to the former minister, Stuart Andrew MP). 

The role of gambling market regulator is a difficult one – but the Gambling Commission has made its task needlessly troublesome by playing politics. As articles in the Racing Post and elsewhere have revealed, the Commission has in recent years suppressed evidence, manipulated surveys and facilitated the funding of anti-gambling activism through the disbursement of regulatory settlements. As the journalist Christopher Snowdon has observed, the Commission’s decision to publish misleading prevalence statistics while at the same time telling people to ignore them for the purposes of estimating prevalence is irresponsible: “They’re your statistics. Take some responsibility”, he wrote last week.

It is rumoured that at least one media outlet has refused a Gambling Commission request to amend its reporting of the GSGB. In any case, belated corrections on an obscure clarifications webpage provide scant redress for the impact of misleading headlines.

The PGR letter was revealing in other ways. In demanding the imposition of a safer gambling levy, the signatories claimed that “it is widely understood that the statutory levy would give oversight of treatment funding to the NHS, research funding to UKRI and prevention funding to OHID.” The DCMS has stated its intention to allocate commissioning responsibilities to the NHS and the UKRI but has made no such announcement with regard to the OHID, so it is unclear where the PGR is getting its information from. The appointment of OHID to the role would probably spell the beginning of the end for the licensed betting and gaming market in Great Britain. Officials at the department have indicated a desire to impose tobacco-style controls on operators and consumers; and have proposed annual increases in duties (effective prohibition), total bans on advertising and even – as bizarre as it may seem – ‘plain packaging for all gambling products (“no colours, logos or images”). They have shown a willingness to manufacture statistics and mislead policy-makers in support of this ambition.

It has been suggested on social media that the Good Law Project complaint about GambleAware (whose moral distaste for gambling pales by comparison with the OHID’s illiberalism) was designed to knock the charity out of the running to be the prevention commissioner. The Charity Commission’s rejection of the complaint (announced this week) should prompt an investigation into potential wrong-doing by those who involved (including whether the OHID had anything to do with it). Scrutiny of charities is important but requires care. Spurious accusations designed to disrupt the activities of the Third Sector is unacceptable. The Gambling Commission may not be the only ones to discover how quickly moral authority can erode.

The gambling suicides myth

The rate of deaths caused by gambling has been foolishly exaggerated

The rate of deaths caused by gambling has been foolishly exaggerated

Artillery Row by Christopher Snowdon May 2024

here is one gambling-related suicide in the UK every day. There are up to 496 gambling-related suicides a year. Ten per cent of all the suicides in England are caused by gambling. 

These statistics, and other iterations of them, have become mantras for the anti-gambling lobby since January 2023 when the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) published a report claiming that there are “between 117 and 496 suicides associated with problem gambling” in England. Activists naturally focused on the larger of these two numbers and started putting it on billboards. The monetised value of years of life supposedly lost to suicide make up most of the “up to” £1.77 billion that gambling is said to cost “wider society” each year.

It turns out that these figures are based on nothing. They are a will o’ the wisp. A mirage. They exist only on a laptop in Whitehall. They are worthless.

How can we possibly know how many suicides are linked to problem gambling, let alone how many are solely caused by it? Gambling is only mentioned on one coroner’s report a year, on average, which is presumably an under-estimate. In the absence of better evidence, OHID’s predecessor Public Health England turned to a study from Sweden which looked at 2,099 hospital patients who were diagnosed with pathological gambling between 2005 and 2016. Sixty-seven of them died, including 21 who took their own life. The authors noted that the suicide rate among this cohort of pathological gamblers was fifteen times higher than the suicide rate of the general Swedish population. 

Upon this sliver of evidence, everything else rested. In 2021, Public Health England simply estimated how many problem gamblers were in England and then multiplied the number of expected suicides by fifteen. This produced a figure of 409 suicides a year which anti-gambling activists then put on T-shirts. 

Public Health England was closed down soon afterwards and replaced by OHID. Last January, OHID used the same methodology but produced two different estimates, one based on how many people are thought to have “gambling disorder” (previously known as pathological gambling) and the other based on how many suffer from the less severe condition of “problem gambling”. The figures were 117 and 496 respectively.

You don’t need to be intimately acquainted with basic statistics to see the problem here. People who are being given medical or psychiatric treatment in hospitals are inherently different to people who are not. If you are admitted to hospital, there is already something wrong with you. If you are admitted to hospital and asked to take a survey to diagnose gambling disorder (or any other psychological problem) then you are very likely to be at the higher end of the risk spectrum.

Sure enough, there was a lot wrong with the 2,099 people in the Swedish study. Between 2005 and 2016, 65 per cent of them suffered from “injury, poisoning, and other consequences of external causes”. 60 per cent had an anxiety disorder. 51 per cent suffered from depression. 41 per cent had a substance-use disorder. 29 per cent had an alcohol-use disorder. 19 per cent had a personality disorder. 19 per cent intentionally self-harmed. 12 per cent were bipolar. 9 per cent had schizophrenia. In the context of all this human misery, a suicide rate of one per cent does not seem too surprising and it is absurd to assume that all the suicides were the result of problem gambling. For many of these unfortunate people, gambling may have been the least of their worries.

The authors of the study freely admitted that these hospital patients were unlikely to be representative of the average problem gambler:

It is therefore likely that results may be skewed toward a population of individuals with more severe forms of GD [gambling disorder]. It is likely that this once again implies that this study sample might contain patients with higher mental health comorbidity, as well as individuals with more severe forms of GD, since these individuals are more likely to receive specialized psychiatry care.

Public Health England and OHID ignored all this and extrapolated the suicide rate among pathological gamblers with multiple co-morbidities in Swedish hospitals across the estimated number of problem gamblers in the general population in England. No attempt was made to adjust for the many other risk factors for suicide that these people obviously had. 

Last year, however, one of the two authors of the Swedish study did exactly that. Using the same dataset in a new study for her PhD thesis, Anna Karlsson found that “gambling disorder did not appear to be a significant risk factor for the increase in suicide and general mortality when controlling for previously known risk factors”. She concluded that her research “could not determine whether GD [gambling disorder] is an independent risk factor for suicide”.

This does not mean that there is no link between gambling disorder and suicide. History and common sense tell us that people who get into severe financial difficulties are more likely to take their own lives and it is obvious that problem gambling is one way to suffer financial distress, albeit the only one that is now treated as a “public health” issue. What it does mean is that gambling disorder, on its own, was not a big enough risk factor for suicide to show up among the people studied by the Swedish authors using standard statistical practice. If you extrapolated the properly adjusted figures from the Swedish study across the English population, the number of gambling-related suicides would be zero.

It is hard to believe that OHID was not aware that it had made an error that a literal schoolboy could have spotted. Public Health England was closed down because it was incompetent and was too easily distracted by lifestyle issues when it should have been focusing on public health. It was more of an in-house lobby group than a serious scientific agency. It seems that closing it down and re-opening it under a new name with the same staff was not enough to make the leopard change its spots.

The Great Suicide Deception – Part IV – What purpose is served by spurious statistics?

Dan Waugh-Regulus Partners May 2024

This is the fourth and final article in our series on attempts by state bodies to claim widespread suicide mortality associated with problem gambling. In the first three articles we demonstrated why estimates prepared by Public Health England and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities were irretrievably flawed; we examined the conduct of PHE and OHID, including evidence of bias and inappropriate behaviour; and we considered the role played by the Gambling Commission, the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling and others in either propagating the PHE-OHID claims or withholding concerns about their reliability. We conclude by addressing the wisdom of attempts to boil down a matter as complex as suicide to any single factor.

It has long been understood that people with gambling disorder are at elevated risk of death by suicide. The DSM-5 (the American Psychiatric Association’s ‘bible’) comments on elevated rates of suicide ideation and attempts among people in treatment for gambling disorder (and makes similar observations in relation to a large number of other mental health conditions, including alcohol use disorder). Concerns in relation to gambling disorder and self-harm – and what might be done to prevent suicide by people with the disorder – are entirely valid.

It is also widely accepted that suicidality is a complex matter. In their 2016 meta-analysis of 50 years of suicide research, Franklin et al. made the following observation: 

“…any individual with nearly any type of mental illness (i.e. internalizing, externalizing, psychotic, or personality disorder symptoms), serious or chronic physical illness, life stress (e.g. social, occupational, or legal problem), special population status (e.g. migrant, prisoner, nonheterosexual), or access to lethal means (e.g. firearms, drugs, high places) may be at risk for [suicidal behaviours and thoughts]. A large proportion of the population possess at least one of these risk factors at any given time, with many people possessing multiple factors.”   

Understanding that people with a gambling disorder are at elevated risk of suicide is helpful when it comes to devising self-harm prevention strategies. For example, Hakansson & Karlsson (the Swedish researchers relied upon by PHE-OHID) conclude their 2020 study with the following recommendation:

“The findings call for improved screening and treatment interventions for patients with gambling disorder and other mental health comorbidity.”

It is questionable however whether studies of discrete associations between any single activity or human characteristic and death by suicide should – by themselves – be used to justify state controls on that activity.  By way of illustration, a 2021 study on the prevalence of suicidal behaviour in a group of patients with behavioural addictions (Valenciano-Mendoza et al.) found: 

“the highest prevalence of suicide attempts was registered for sex addiction (9.1%), followed by buying–shopping disorder (7.6%), gambling disorder (6.7%), and gaming disorder (3.0%).”

These findings may be useful for addressing risk of self-harm within population groups suffering from these mental health conditions. They do not – by themselves – justify bans on sex, shopping or playing video games. A 2017 study of young adults in England (aged 20-24 years, n=106) by Appleby et al., found that four deaths by suicide were linked to ‘gambling problems’; and this has been used to suggest that 250 deaths by suicide each year are ‘gambling-related’. The study also found that 44 of those who had died “had a reported history of excessive alcohol use. Illicit drug use was reported in 54 (51%)”; seven “were reported as experiencing problems related to being a student” (including five experiencing “academic pressures”. One might therefore estimate (using the same methodology as for gambling problems) that around 3,200 suicides are related to illicit drug use; 2,625 to excessive alcohol use; and 440 to academia. Such findings should prompt concern and policy responses; but it is questionable whether these should extend – for example – to complete bans on advertisements for beer or universities.

Some activists have called for coroners to assess, as a matter of routine, the possible involvement of gambling in deaths under investigation – the Bishop of St Albans has doggedly pursued a Private Members Bill to mandate this. At first blush it seems to be a reasonable suggestion. The problem is that it places an additional requirement on already over-burdened coroners; and risks distortion if other known factors are not also investigated with the same degree of rigour. The presence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (‘ACEs’) is a well-documented antecedent of suicide with one study (Dube et al., 2001) finding that as many as 80% of suicide cases analysed had a history of ACEs. There are also well-documented associations between relationship breakdown and self-harm. The practicality and wisdom of asking coroners to probe into every corner of the deceased’s life should be carefully considered.

Those determined to produce figures on the prevalence of gambling-related suicide should first set out a clear operationalised definition of what this term means. How is the relationship to be characterised (e.g. does the individual need to have gambled in the prior 12 months? Does he or she need to have a diagnosis of gambling disorder?) and to what extent is there evidence of causal contribution to death (e.g. was gambling disorder a significant factor or a minor factor?). Finally, they should be required to contextualise their findings by reference to other risk factors.

Running through some of the institutional responses to PHE-OHID is the idea that unreliable estimates of mortality serve a valid purpose pending the production of more robust statistics – something along the lines of ‘fake it until you can make it’. The chair of the Gambling Commission’s Advisory Board for Safer Gambling (‘ABSG’), Dr Anna van der Gaag, for example has written that: 

“Good research, especially if it is on an under-researched area like this one, tends to begin and end in a different place, prompting challenge, replication, debate, and the research in this important area is no different.”

It is a view that overlooks four important points. First, the PHE-OHID work on the cost of gambling harms is riven with errors (including mathematical mistakes) and should not be considered “good research”. Second, the ABSG specifically called for “action” as a result of the PHE estimates – with no suggestion of the need for caution or refinement. Third, rather than welcoming challenge, the ABSG has engaged in ad hominem disparagement of those attempting to apply scrutiny to the PHE-OHID claims (likening this, without substantiation, to the activities of Big Oil). Fourth, it is questionable how far we should trust ‘better research’ if those responsible for it have propagated or tolerated misinformation in the past. As we saw during the Covid pandemic, the production of misleading statistics may in fact set back the cause of harm prevention by undermining trust in authority. 

Suicide risk among people with a gambling disorder is a legitimate issue and warrants an intelligent response; but this is unlikely to be achieved through the publication of spurious estimates of prevalence. As the US economist, Professor Douglas Walker has observed; 

“If researchers continue to offer social cost estimates, they should estimate costs that are measurable. But for other costs such as psychic costs that cannot be measured…let us identify them without providing spurious empirical estimates. Offering methodologically flawed cost estimates does not improve our understanding nor does it promote sound policy…In areas where research is still quite primitive, perhaps no data would be better than flawed data.”

Coda

We are aware that some individuals and organisations will resent this series of articles on PHE-OHID (not least the OHID researchers themselves). Our intention in writing them has not been to hurt or insult – but to shine a light on the way that some statistics are created and the distortive effect that ‘bad statistics’ can have on government policies. The application of scrutiny to research is an important part of the scientific process; and where state bodies are concerned, an important part of the democratic process too. It is entirely consistent to be concerned about a particular issue (e.g. risk of self-harm in a gambling context) and at the same time to believe that research into that issue should be conducted with honesty, openness and in accordance with scientific principles. In this way, we may hope to reduce the stigma associated with self-harm (such that gambling firms and other businesses gain the confidence to openly confront it); and that, over time, we may apply greater intelligence to the prevention of suicide in a gambling context and more generally. 

Unreliable Suicide Claims in Gambling: ABSG’s Questionable Stance

The Great Suicide Deception. Part III – Conspiracy of Silence

Dan Waugh, Regulus Partners. May 2024

The Great Suicide Deception. Part III – Conspiracy of Silence

This is the third in a series of articles examining claims made by state bodies in England about rates of suicide associated with ‘problem gambling’. In the first we demonstrated that estimates of suicide mortality produced, first by Public Health England (‘PHE’, 2021) and then by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (‘OHID’, 2023) were irretrievably flawed. In the second, we looked at the behaviour of PHE and OHID, finding indications of a priori bias or inexplicable negligence and unsound governance. In this third article, we examine the conduct of others in positions of authority and ask why so many people who knew that PHE and OHID’s claims were unreliable decided to look the other way. We also recognise those who were prepared to apply critical analysis. Once again, we observe that, while gambling disorder has been recognised as a risk factor for self-harm for more than 40 years, efforts to tackle this are unlikely to be advanced by the use of junk science.

1. Why did the Gambling Commission not ‘do the right thing’?

By April 2022, Britain’s Gambling Commission knew that estimates of suicide mortality published by PHE were “unreliable” and based on “inaccurate” assumptions. This may have been a somewhat uncomfortable finding, given that the regulator had previously described the review as “important and independent”. It had arrived at this opinion despite not having received anything more than an executive summary (which it had not read when it agreed to provide “a supportive quote”). It also knew that PHE was far from “independent”, having been made aware of its intention to apply tobacco-style controls to participation in betting and gaming.

At a meeting in March 2022, Gambling Commission officials admitted that they did not understand how PHE had arrived at some of its estimates (no-one could have been expected to – given the fact that the calculations were mathematically incorrect). In April, these officials circulated a highly critical review of the PHE report, in which they noted that the suicide claims were not based on “reliable data”. The Commission however, elected not to take the matter up with the OHID (which had subsumed PHE upon the latter’s disbandment) or to inform the Secretary of State. The market regulator – which counts “doing the right thing” among its corporate values – elected to suppress its critique. In one rather sinister coda to the Commission’s critique, one official speculated that PHE’s claim of more than 400 suicides might be rescued, if only future prevalence surveys showed a higher rate of ‘problem gambling’ in the population. At this point, the Commission had started work on a new Gambling Survey for Great Britain in the expectation that – as a result of methodological issues – would produce a higher rate of ‘problem gambling’ than reported by tNHS Health Surveys.

 

When asked by journalists whether it considered the PHE claims to be reliable, the Gambling Commission responded that it was not its role to review the work of other state agencies; but failed to mention that this is precisely what it had done. As late as 2023, its chief executive, Andrew Rhodes continued to defend the PHE-OHID estimates, despite being aware of the problems with them; and it seems likely that the market regulator has been involved in disseminating the misinformation via approval of regulatory settlement funds.

2. the ABSG and the irrelevance of accuracy

In the summer of 2022, the OHID wrote to the Gambling Commission’s Advisory Board for Safer Gambling (‘ABSG’) to ask for its opinion on criticism of PHE’s suicide analysis. In her response, the ABSG’s chair, Dr Anna van der Gaag appeared to agree that there were indeed a number of issues. She wrote: “I see their point about basing calculations on the Swedish hospital study leading to an over estimation of the numbers”. She then proceeded to suggest that accuracy in such matters was unimportant and that attempts to apply scrutiny was “a distraction from what matters to people and families harmed by gambling”. This represented a change in attitude from three months earlier when the ABSG had described PHE’s highly exact estimate of 409 suicides associated with problem gambling as a “catalyst towards action”. The Gambling Commission allowed the ABSG to publish this opinion in the full knowledge that it was based on unreliable data. 

The following year, Dr van der Gaag was one of two co-adjudicators responsible for allocating around £1m in Gambling Commission (regulatory settlement) funding for the purposes of research into suicide and gambling. Applicants were specifically directed towards the OHID analysis (i.e. estimates that the ABSG knew were flawed) as well as claims by the activist group, Gambling With Lives (despite the fact that even the OHID had indirectly criticised one of GwL’s claims). One of the successful bids (a £582,599 award to a consortium led by the University of Lincoln) included Gambling With Lives as an active member of the research team. 

3. the Silence of the ‘Independents’

Among those who have supported the claims of PHE-OHID are a number of self-styled ‘independent’ researchers. These include academics from the universities of Cambridge, Hong Kong, Lincoln, Manchester, Nottingham and Southampton, as well as King’s College, London, who have cited the estimates uncritically in their work. Perhaps they considered (naively, if so) that research produced by the Government is unimpeachable; yet the errors made by PHE-OHID are so glaring that no researcher of any calibre could have failed to notice them. The failure to subject such serious claims to critical analysis before repeating them indicates – at the very least – an absence of intellectual curiosity. Much is made of the need for research independence (typically defined solely by an absence of industry funding, regardless of ideology or other affiliations); but independence has little value if it is not accompanied by intelligence and integrity. 

4. Breaking ground

A small number of groups and individuals have been prepared to apply scrutiny and challenge, despite the circumstances. The Racing Post and the think tank Cieo have published a number of our own articles on the problems with PHE-OHID (as well as other issues with research-activism); and a handful of journalists, including Chris Snowdon, Steve Hoare and Scott Longley have been prepared to challenge the PHE-OHID claims. Figures from trade groups, bacta and the Gambling Business Group have spoken out publicly on issues with PHE-OHID.

Officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have displayed a capacity for critical analysis, notable by its absence elsewhere in Whitehall. Their White Paper on reform of the betting and gaming market acknowledged valid concerns about self-harm but conspicuously omitted the OHID figures. Lord Foster of Bath, a stern critic of the gambling industry, has acknowledged that the PHE-OHID claims are not reliable and – in a show of honesty and humility rare in the gambling debate – apologised for using the figures himself. He continues to make the case for self-harm to be treated seriously in a gambling context; but without recourse to spurious statistics. Philip Davies, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Shipley, has challenged unsound statistics in parliamentary debates; and Dame Caroline Dinenage’s select committee for Culture, Media and Sport noted concerns of reliability in its report on gambling regulation. 

One member of the Gambling Commission’s senior management team – Tim Miller – has been prepared to discuss and acknowledge problems with PHE-OHID; an attitude that contrasts sharply with that of his colleagues.

5. ‘Noble lies’ and consequences?

Underlying the PHE-OHID saga is a sense that some people in positions of authority consider it acceptable to publish inaccurate or misleading statistics if the cause is – in their opinion – just. Some have even suggested that scrutiny of misinformation is unethical, rather than its manufacture. In July this year, the Gambling Commission intends to publish statistics on the prevalence of suicidality amongst gamblers. Given its role in PHE-OHID (in addition to major issues with its new survey), it is questionable why anyone should consider these results credible. It has also – via Gambling Research Exchange Ontario – sponsored a programme of research into wagering and self-harm. Given that these studies have been explicitly grounded in the PHE-OHID deception – and the complicity of many of those involved – suspicions of bias will accompany publication. It is the publication of unreliable research – rather than scrutiny of those statistics – that undermines public trust in authority. Attempts to address health harms in any domain will be ineffective if they are based on inaccurate evidence.

An independent and open review should be carried out into the PHE-OHID deception; but it is difficult to see how this will happen. The Department of Health and Social Care and the Gambling Commission are unlikely to embrace scrutiny; and the DCMS will not wish to embarrass either its regulator or another government department. There are too many people in Parliament and the media who have played a part; and too few prepared to break ranks. The gambling industry meanwhile (with a number of notable exceptions) has shown little inclination to challenge. There is one hope – that the Office for Statistics Regulation will be prepared to take an interest in the integrity of public health estimates. Such an intervention would go somewhere at least towards restoring trust in public bodies.

A Very Public Deception: On the manufacture of mortality statistics in gambling

Part II – Why did public health get things so badly wrong?

n the first in this series of articles, we examined the problems with claims made by state bodies – specifically Public Health England (‘PHE’) and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (‘OHID’) that up to 496 deaths by suicide each year in England are associated with ‘problem gambling’. We demonstrated that the basis for these claims is irretrievably flawed. Analysis of the Swedish dataset upon which they rely concluded that “gambling disorder did not appear to be a significant risk factor for the increase in suicide” (Karlsson, 2023). PHE and OHID researchers overlooked critical research findings and clear warnings about the advisability of their approach. While gambling disorder has long been recognised as a risk factor for self-harm, the estimates published by PHE-OHID are categorically unsound.

Read Part One: Lost in Translation?

In this second article in the series, we attempt to understand why PHE and the OHID persisted in following such a clearly problematic approach in the face of strong evidence of its unsuitability; we examine a number of issues of governance; and consider whether officials may have deliberately misled policy-makers and the public.

The Tobacco Road: why did PHE make such unsound claims?

In May 2018, at the conclusion of its review into gaming machines and social responsibility, the British Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport asked PHE to “conduct an evidence review of health aspects of gambling-related harm to inform action on prevention and treatment”.  More than three years later, in September 2021, PHE responded with the publication of five reports on the subject. One of these reports (‘The economic and social cost of harms’) claimed annual costs of £1.27bn a year associated with ‘problem gambling’ – with roughly 50% attributable to deaths by suicide.

It was this rather speculative document, rather than PHE’s more robust quantitative review of evidence from NHS Health Surveys, that officials chose to emphasise – prompting Britain’s Gambling Commission to surmise that PHE’s goal was, “to ensure gambling is considered as a public health issue.”

The Gambling Commission had already been given a glimpse of what “a public health issue” would entail. In a draft press release (seen by the Commission), PHE officials called for:

“a public health approach to gambling…similar to how we tackle tobacco consumption or unhealthy food consumption…”.

In the summer of 2022, the PHE researchers (now transferred to OHID) spelt out what this tobacco-style offensive would involve. Their paper, published in the Lancet Public Health, contained 81 measures for state intervention in the gambling market. The list included prohibitions on: all gambling advertising and marketing (including at racecourses); all in-play betting; and the sale of wine, beer and spirits in bingo clubs and casinos. It also included limits on the number of people permitted on a website at any one time, annual tax increases above the rate of inflation and even ‘plain packaging’ for all gambling products (no colours, logos or images permitted on playing cards, gaming machines, National Lottery tickets and so on).

There were other indications that PHE’s endeavours were not entirely objective – or morally neutral. In 2020, for example, its project leader stated that “more research is required to support advocacy and action” against gambling – hardly a statement of impartiality or scientific rigour. Meanwhile, documents made available under the Freedom of Information Act (‘FOIA’) reveal that PHE had agreed to be part of a research group set up by the activist charity, Gambling With Lives (‘GwL’) during the review period – an engagement it failed to disclose within its report.

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Why did OHID publish its report…and did officials mislead?

In January 2023, the Department of Health and Social Care (‘DHSC’) withdrew the PHE report and published an updated set of cost estimates – this time in the range of £1.05bn to £1.77bn a year (underpinned by a choice of 117 or 496 deaths). OHID described the decision to review PHE’s work as “a standard approach for previously published reports ”; but this seems to be untrue. The decision to re-examine the PHE cost estimates alone (none of the other four reports was reviewed – despite the presence of errors) was taken in July 2022 and announced to Parliament shortly afterwards. We have found no evidence that reviewing state agency reports within ten months of publication is a “standard approach” or that any such policy exists.

Disclosures made under FOIA reveal the true reason for review. On 26th July 2022, an unnamed DHSC official circulated a memorandum, stating:

“We are going to need to make changes to two of the evidence review reports as an error has been spotted, and as it’s a change to results, its [sic.] probably what you would classify as a major change.”

Given that the PHE report contained quite a few errors, it is difficult to know which particular mistake prompted re-examination; but the decision was certainly not part of a “standard approach”. This raises the possibility that OHID may have deliberately misrepresented the grounds for review.

The Gambling Commission and the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling were both told by OHID researchers that “nothing in the report has changed substantially”; but this is incorrect. In fact, every single line item in the OHID cost estimate differed from the PHE version – in some cases substantially. Its estimate of direct costs to the Government was £234.1m lower than PHE’s – a reduction of more than one-third. This was masked by the introduction of a new area of intangible costs, relating to depression and several revisions to the suicide calculation. OHID’s estimates were also based on a ‘harmed population’ 59% smaller than in PHE. As chart 1 (below) shows, the claim that ‘nothing changed substantially’ appears misleading.

In August 2022, the then Health Minister, Maggie Throup MP advised Parliament that the PHE report would be reviewed and that the calculations underpinning its estimates would be published. The review however, has never been made public and – according to disclosures made under FOIA – no such document is held by the DHSC. Contrary to the minister’s pledge, the PHE calculations have still not been released. To do so would reveal a number of errors, such as the fact that PHE’s suicide figure was based on a 21% over-statement of the population prevalence of ‘problem gambling’.

The mystery of the OHID expert panel

OHID was at least prepared to admit – with a heavy dose of understatement – that its estimates were “uncertain”. It relied on a study of hospital patients in Sweden with a clinical diagnosis of gambling disorder (among many other health issues) to estimate the health risks for people in England with no diagnosed mental or physical health conditions whatsoever. In consequence, OHID leaned heavily on the opinion of its expert panel of health economists and academics who, it is claimed, approved the approach.

There are, however two problems where this opinion is concerned. The first is that one member of the expert panel, Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones of the NHS had publicly criticised the PHE-OHID methodology. At a fringe meeting of the Conservative Party Conference in September 2022, Dr Bowden-Jones stated: “we cannot extrapolate from Swedish studies, from Norwegian studies – it doesn’t work”.

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The second issue is that the meeting of the expert panel – to discuss the most significant matter in the OHID report – is entirely undocumented. In February 2023, the DHSC admitted that:

“there was no agenda or papers shared before the meeting or minutes circulated afterwards”.

It is difficult to understand how this panel of experts might have been expected to review OHID’s work without access to any documents; and why officials did not consider it necessary to record the panel’s deliberations on this critical point.

Why did public health get things so badly wrong?

Inappropriate behaviour?

The task attempted by PHE-OHID was always going to be challenging, given the dearth of actual data available. This does not explain or excuse the large number of errors and omissions made by researchers and officials:

  • PHE and OHID ignored warnings by Karlsson & Håkansson about the representativeness of the sample in the 2018 Swedish study (upon which they relied);
  • PHE and OHID ignored findings in the 2018 study of high rates of mental and physical health comorbidities.
  • PHE and OHID ignored the follow-up study by the Swedish researchers (Håkansson & Karlsson, 2020), which found that risk of suicide attempt was significantly mediated by the presence of other disorders.
  • PHE and OHID ignored the opinion of Dr Anna van der Gaag, chair of the Gambling Commission’s Advisory Board for Safer Gambling, that the PHE calculation was likely to be inaccurate.

A large number of issues with the PHE-OHID reports were brought to the attention of its Director-General, Jonathan Marron in July 2022 and again in September 2023. On both occasions, Mr Marron promised to investigate. Last year, he wrote that he would provide “a proper explanation” for the errors and methodological flaws; but more than seven months later, none has been forthcoming. In what may well be a breach of the Civil Service Code, OHID officials resorted to ad hominem disparagement of their critics – including one national news media outlet – rather than engage constructively.

What is particularly disturbing about the PHE-OHID scandal is not the fact that researchers (presented with an unenviable task) made so many mistakes; but that state officials proved so unwilling to confront them – responding with hostility to legitimate scrutiny.

Next week, in our third article, we will consider the behaviour of others in positions of political or moral authority who variously connived in the deception or turned a blind eye to it. We will reflect on what this means for their future involvement in research and policy-making.

Dan Waugh

May 17th 2024

Regulus Partners

A Very Public Deception: On the manufacture of mortality statistics in gamblingA study of suicides in gambling, are we being told the truth? Part 1

Public Health England was closed down because it was incompetent and was too easily distracted by lifestyle issues when it should have been focusing on public health. It was more of an in-house lobby group than a serious scientific agency. It seems that closing it down and re-opening it under a new name (OHID) with the same staff was not enough to make the leopard change its spots.

Dan Waugh- Regulus Partners

In recent years, the claim that up to 496 deaths a year in England are associated with problem gambling has become a staple of the debate on gambling market reform. The estimates originate from a 2023 report by the British Government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (‘OHID’) and have been used to support demands for a wide range of additional controls on consumers and the market. There is just one problem – they are based on junk science.

While it has long been recognised that people with gambling disorder are at elevated risk of self-harm, the specific estimates produced by OHID – accepted uncritically by many in Parliament and the news media – rely on a number of ‘flat-Earth’ assumptions.

In this series of articles, we examine the methods used (and errors made) in calculating these figures and consider the conduct of those who have propagated them. In this, the first article, we demonstrate why the OHID estimates are unsound. In subsequent weeks we will describe the behaviour of the public health officials responsible for their manufacture; consider the actions of other notionally responsible bodies; and ask what public benefit is served by the generation of spurious statistics.

The first state-sponsored estimate of gambling-related suicides in Britain appeared in September 2021 with the release of Public Health England’s (‘PHE’) report, ‘Gambling-related harms evidence review: the economic and social cost of harms’. It contended that, in England, 409 suicides a year were “associated with problem gambling only”. In January 2023, the PHE report was replaced (due to identification of errors) by an update from OHID. It offered a choice of either 117 or 496 suicides “associated with problem gambling”.

Both the PHE and OHID estimates were based on a 2018 study of the medical records of patients treated in Swedish hospitals between 2006 and 2016. Dr Anna Karlsson and Professor Anders Håkansson from Lund University found that patients in the dataset with a clinical diagnosis of ICD-10 ‘pathological gambling’ (renamed gambling disorder in the ICD-11) were on average, 15.1 times more likely to die by suicide compared with the general population. PHE applied suicide mortality ratios from this study to NHS Health Survey estimates of the prevalence of PGSI ‘problem gambling’ in England to produce a figure of 409 deaths a year.

In 2023, OHID repeated the exercise, using precisely the same information, and produced figures of either 117 or 496 deaths (the lower figure based on the application of the Swedish mortality ratios to the population prevalence of DSM-IV ‘pathological gambling’). In doing so they ignored critical information and clear warnings that their methods were unsound. The hospital patients whose records were analysed in the ‘Swedish study’ suffered from a wide range of diagnosed mental and physical health conditions (see charts 1 and 2, below). As a group, they were at elevated risk of self-harm, regardless of the presence or absence of gambling disorder. PHE-OHID thought otherwise – assuming that  health risks for hospital patients in Sweden with a wide range of illnesses were the same as for people in England with no diagnosed health disorders whatsoever. In other words, they made the ‘flat-Earth’ assumption that there is no association between mental and physical ill-health and risk of suicide.

In making this assumption, PHE and OHID ignored a clear warning from Karlsson & Håkansson. Their paper advised that the hospital patients whose records they had studied were likely to suffer from particularly severe and complex disorders:

“It is therefore likely that results may be skewed toward a population of individuals with more severe forms of GD [gambling disorder]. It is likely that this once again implies that this study sample might contain patients with higher mental health comorbidity, as well as individuals with more severe forms of GD, since these individuals are more likely to receive specialized psychiatry care”.

The PHE-OHID researchers also ignored findings from the follow-up to this study (the second in a series of five undertaken by the researchers from Lund University). Håkansson & Karlsson (2020) showed that comorbid health conditions were even higher within the group of patients who had attempted or completed suicide (see chart 3).

Professor Håkansson and Dr Karlsson showed that risk of suicide attempt was five times higher for patients with gambling disorder if they also had diagnoses of alcohol use disorder and drug use disorder. Of those patients who had made a suicide attempt, 70% had a diagnosis of alcohol use disorder or drug use disorder or both. The researchers at Lund University provided a range of adjusted odds ratios based on the presence of other diagnosed mental health conditions (see table 1). This study – which was published ten months prior to the PHE report – indicated that suicide risk for patients with gambling disorder was halved where no alcohol use or drug use disorders were diagnosed. Even before adjusting for other risk factors, these findings clearly demonstrated the inappropriateness of PHE’s approach.

A third study assessed the effect of socioeconomic factors on risk of suicide attempt. In the fourth study, a control group was used to identify discrete risks associated with gambling disorder. It concluded that:

“gambling disorder did not appear to be a significant risk factor for the increase in suicide and general mortality when controlling for previously known risk factors”.

This finding creates a dilemma for OHID and those who have propagated its claims. If one believes that analysis of the Swedish National Patient register by Karlsson & Håkansson provides a reliable basis for assessing suicide risk in England, then one must conclude that – contrary to PHE-OHID assertions – gambling disorder is not “a significant risk factor”. If on the other hand, one does not believe this is a suitable approach, then the PHE-OHID claims also cannot stand because they rely entirely on the mortality ratios from the first of the Swedish studies.

The fact that PHE and OHID got things wrong does not mean that underlying concerns about gambling disorder and self-harm are misplaced – or that gambling operators, treatment providers and policy-makers should ignore the issue. It has long been recognised that people with the disorder are at elevated risk of suicide, even if the precise nature of the relationship is complex. A number of recent inquests in England have determined that excessive gambling contributed to loss of life. Operators should do more to promote positive mental health and to address risk of self-harm among their customers and employees – whether gambling is involved or not. The PHE-OHID claims are, however, irretrievably flawed and should be disregarded by policy-makers. There is simply no coherent logic that allows them to stand.

In next week’s article, we will consider why PHE-OHID produced such obviously flawed findings and examine potentially serious issues of governance attending their publication.

List of abbreviations

DSM-III: The third edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders.

DSM-IV: A screening questionnaire published by the American Psychiatric Association within the fourth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders

OHID: the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Part of the Department of Health and Social Care.

PGSI: The Problem Gambling Severity Index. A screening instrument developed by Ferris & Wynne (2001).

PHE: Public Health England. A state agency, reporting to the Department of Health and Social Care. It was disbanded in 2021.

Dan Waugh is a partner at the global strategic sports and leisure advisory firm, Regulus Partners.

Unibet’s favourite ambassador

There’s a dangerous saying in Racing. ‘How dare you question me?’ One could introduce  perhaps ‘I am beyond reproach.’

unibet2

But Nicky, you’re not beyond reproach, for a second. In fact it does appear to coin another well turned phrase, ‘he doth protesteth too much’

Whilst I personally find Nicky,  a most amiable sort, and of appreciable talent, there are two things which he has to take fully on board. One, racing fans don’t have reason to appreciate nor like the commercial stance you are adopting in relationships with Bookmakers. And second, you have to accept that the behaviour of those who work in your yard, or how information is utilised, will be the target for speculation, for as long as you maintain horses are in great order, only to withdraw them a couple of days later.

The ‘some journalists are dead meat’ comment, is unprofessional, and unjustified. Frankly it’s a dangerous precedent, from a yard that so dominates the sport. Journalists have an important role to fulfil, and it’s not to kiss people’s backsides. Fine, we all accept Racing press notoriety not for hard headed sports journalism, rather a deserved reputation for the supine. Printing the rubbish peddled by top trainers as gospel has long since reached epidemic proportion.

See this interview with Matt Chapman from ITV’s feed in which he denies there was a problem with Altior on the Saturday before the Tingle, and maintains there was ‘no issue’

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjn1YjumaXYAhXpCsAKHX7WAJ0QFggwMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.itv.com%2Fracing%2Farchive-clips%2Fmatt-chapman-speaks-to-nicky-henderson-about-the-altior-controversy&usg=AOvVaw1OlX8-6oTcPV6qZcU03oJu

And here is Nick’s Unibet version which maintains there WAS an issue with ALtior’s breathing the Saturday before

https://t.co/4dfZFYlzfq

 

I don’t know about you, but I’m struggling to understand which version I am to believe?

 

To deal with each point. One, the practice of association with Betting companies is an abhorrent development, something Henderson should be fully aware is deeply unpopular. Let me remind people how companies such as Ladbrokes utilise information to their advantage, gained from accounts they operate,  as in the David Evans- Rule 4 saga. Anyone that imagines these betting behemoths behave with impeccably good manners when it comes to money must be living in some form of fantasy world. None of them behave well. In fact there’s compelling daily evidence to show how low they have stooped as companies in their pursuit of accounts and money. They’re bound to use associations with top trainers to their commercial advantage, and to penalize their customers therefore. And Nicky knows this, hence his exaggerated indignation at Cheltenham.  Unibet have no reason to release your ‘information’ promptly. They are not a news service.

Punters simply think they are being cheated, whether that’s true or not, such association used to be outlawed, for very good reason. The BHA haven’t supplied any rationale for this decision, and don’t expect a docile Gambling Commission to do anything about it either.

To boot Unibet have ensured the very latest flow of information from Seven Barrows, via their association with your stable Jockey, Nico De Boinville. Couldn’t get any more insidious.

unibet1

Henderson simply shouldn’t be releasing information via any medium other than the stable’s own twitter feed, or perhaps via the racing press feed. Good news, or bad news. A Bookmaker is simply not the right vessel.

altior

As a bookmaker, we were aware of very significant monies for Fox Norton, for the Tingle Creek in the day PRIOR to the withdrawal of the mighty Altior. And we were not alone as the news was all over Twitter. Betfair exchange and other bookmakers reported the same pattern of monies. Fine, Hendo may not have personally made a final decision as to the participation, but others quite clearly had leaked their doubts to their associates, as to the participation of Altior. The fact remains, some people generously helped themselves before the information was released, and they were proven correct. Who was leaking this information, or were they all better informed than Henderson himself? You were after saying the horse was in ‘magnificent order.’

One concludes either Henderson doesn’t know the well being of his horses, he’s waiting on the strength of the opposition to show their hands, or someone else in his organisation knows his charges better than he does.

Perhaps it could be the myopic focus on the Cheltenham Festival. A subject which concerns many racing fans, excepting the regulator itself. The Tingle, Fighting Fifth and many more top races decimated. The BHA far too slow to establish minimum conditions of entry for the Festival. Something they’re told by the likes of Henderson ‘isn’t possible.’

It is. Yesterday I heard the NFL, the world’s best sporting body, totally re-jig it’s schedule next week, to put all potential playoff games on at the same time. Doubtless upsetting giant TV networks. That’s how to run sport. Act

The truth is – Altior will be another one of those top stars who turn up in March, having not experienced a real race (of his class) in the six month lead up to Cheltenham.

The pigs ended up in the betting trough, and people are fully entitled to know why, since they are investing in the sport.

Associations with big betting companies by jockeys and stables has to be ended by this BHA. There’s no sensible regulatory reason for such deals, other than to upset the very people who funded the sport to the tune of 52 million last year.

Remember, Mr Rust, the only people to benefit from those deals are the best of trainers and jockeys. The little guys rarely share in such windfalls, and if it in any way has the whiff of impropriety,-  it has to be outlawed.

unibet3

Finally, I would add that Henderson’s ‘how dare you’ approach, as a top trainer needs to be roundly condemned, in all quarters. This arrogant approach, that if you dare question anything I do, in the manner so common in other sports, is damaging to the good governance of racing. nobody should be above fair interview. Tell me why Nicky Henderson thinks he only deserves good press?

It wasn’t so long ago Nicky, that you were handed the softest ban in living memory for doctoring records, to conceal guilt, and administering banned substances to your horse. I don’t doubt the shame of reporting in those days leaves a hurtful stain in your memory, but you have to accept that those journalists, then and now, are simply, and fairly, doing their job. You broke the rules, knowingly, and with appropriate disregard for the rules. It’s more than a bit rich to claim the moral high ground over your associations with betting companies, especially if you don’t bet with Unibet. I expect most people get their racing news from the Racing Post, or the Guardian. Aren’t these more appropriate mediums?

So Nicky, accept the brickbats as they come, because you most definitely benefit from a veritable avalanche of good press when your horses do well.

I suppose I’m dead..

 

 

 

 

Champions Day – The Bookies view..

 

 

champ

A few years ago the Emperor of Jockey Club surveyed his tracks in response to a grand plan from British Racing for a season’s end panto. Cheltenham seemed too bumpy and that of grotesque tweed, ohh no. Newmarket can’t stand kids, hard to find, even with Google maps. Kempton is quite simply a nasty little shack, full of dead flies. He decided he’d make more cash if they went along with the plan to create a season ending bash, at which the finest Port and cheese would, of course, be served. Ascot had been busy building a structure so vast in stature, it created it’s own weather pattern. If you’re going to have a jolly event, it’s important you have a Swinley Bottom. Or Bottoms.

Let’s get the humble pie bit out of the way-I prattled on, along with a few other lesser mortals, that the timing needed revision. The fact remains the whole shebang was saved by the very participation of one horse. Frankel. Had he not bothered turning up in 2012 i believe, the BHA think tank would have been meeting to reconsider upsetting the our froggie friends by moving it back a month. I still believe that’s the best option if we are to secure participation of faster ground animals, but I was outvoted by people wearing waist coats and deerstalkers.

image_update_4e775acb75c2601f_1353588126_9j-4aaqsk

Anyway, they threatened Teddy Grimthorpe with violence, and Frankel duly turned up. The party was saved along with a few jobs at Great British Racing. Ascot was the right venue. It has the infrastructure, class and grandeur to organise an end of season bash and serves drinks in a real glass. It’s been blessed with much better weather over the last few years, and with that the arrival of some of the top equine stars to entertain us. We can all be a toff for the day at Ascot..

Even the French send over the odd runner. Foreign equine stars are my absolute pension. Ridden by Thierry’s and Moet’s. All who think they can turn in to the Ascot straight, 6 lengths back, and possibly win. Mais Non, Espece de Cretin..

I quaffed a few glasses and joined the great unwashed in the betting ring. and the big bets were flying about on Order Of St George and a number of notably lumpy wagers set the tone. It was down and dirty and they didn’t seem to care if I lost.. David Power gave me some fun money for O’Brien’s star. He’s no shrinking violet when it comes to betting. My eyes were stinging, not the kind of bet you get with the Supermarket operators.. St George wasn’t however the only one they came for, Stradivarius was popular and a few saddos backed the French runner.. I should have discovered betting in running..St George touched 33/1 with the Bot traders.

Whilst Harry’s thingy was popular in the sprint, one other horse swamped my book. A fellah I recognised as a warm order, stuffed a chunkin my hand and said ‘put that on horse 5.’  I checked the board. Tasleet – 14/1. ‘Don’t you mean Harry’s?’. No, I’m sure, Tasleet.

I threw the money into the bag as if i stood such bets every day of the week. I gave David Power an interest for being such a nice fellah. He didn’t bat an eyelid. I got on with standing the favourite for a threatening lump. The race looked all over at the two marker with Harry’s sauntering along, – to suddenly be pressed by this Hamdam thing..my big chance lay in the whip, Hamdam doesn’t take to the whip for his stars, two cracks and out, the order of the day. Fortunately. I survived the race this time, back in front.

gosden

I spot Lord Gosden in the walkway, surrounded by 20 or so press folk. ‘Tell us what you had for breakfast John, for the fans you understand..’
‘well I’m rather partial to kippers’ JG replied, in his most aristocratic tone, and they all looked excited. scribbling away. The Gosden accent bothers me. I know John’s public school, and they don’t talk like that. He’s done a study course in phwah phwah and taken the Missus along, so they can converse appropriately.

What he can do, is train. If they stuck a Galileo in his yard covering everything we’d be celebrating 25 English group ones (or you English would) He also strikes me as rather a decent sort, batting for a bit of fair play.

Chapman was also in the ring. Wearing some kind of welly boots, and blanking me for dissing the Opening Show. Even though he was caught on camera dozing off by all 32 viewers. ITV is a paradox, their Opening Show is quite dismal, their afternoon show is, I have to say it, great. I think what they do so much better than Channel 4 is deliver it with style, if not with the Channel 4 quality of production, but that’s quibbling. Everyone looks smart, and everything is great. If you bought the ‘it’s great’ on Sporting Index, you’d be worth one Oppenheinmer…

itv

But Champions Day is great. And so equally have so many of this season’s flat events. In said regard, ITV is totally appropriate. There are those that say I’m hopelessly in love with Francesca Cumani, but that’s a total exageration..

Nice mix on ITV with the intelligent Weaver and Brough Scott brought back from the dead (literally) Cumani’s accuracy with horse action and Chamberlin’s style. Nice, it works for me. Chapman eternally entertaining, he makes me laugh and offers balance, but don’t tell him that, his ego is insufferable. Somewhere in the mix I hope they find jobs for Luck and Cunningham. If you’re committed to the best, then have the best in some capacity.

Viewing figures suggested a half a million, far short of the BBC ideal we were supposed to be treated to. Here you have to blame racing for its failures. Simply far too many opportunities for horses like Enable, Ulyssees and Cracksman to square off. You think it doesn’t matter? Of course it does. Far too often television companies showcasing this sport are presented with half the available participants for a top race. Too many group ones, too many countries failing to co-operate and not enough stars. Cracksman hasn’t raced since York, swerved the Arc and the Breeders and its a miracle if he trains on as a 4 year old it’s a miracle as right now he’s worth as much as his Dad. The National Hunt is in terminal decline because we ignore this cancer. A sport that denies the paying public the best squaring off can’t hope for top viewing audiences when the other channel is showing Manchester United vs Liverpool.

Cracksman strolls onto the field for the main event, balls gently swaying in the wind. Let’s deal with any blithering idiots reading this. If you think Enable would have downed this machine with her far more workmanlike Arc performance, you’ve taken total leave of your senses. He destroyed a top class field, as indeed he did in the Dante. This is the best I’ve seen since his Papa. He would have danced all over the filly. FACT.

I’m sure we can look forward to Enable and Cracksman squaring off as four year olds. Not.

I stood Cracksman for an appropriate amount, – and lost an appropriate amount. Ryan Moore, who’d been brilliant all day, when not under a microphone, drove Highland Reel up Sunninghill High Street. In truth his chances on rain softened ground were limited. The French nags were, predictably, hopeless, and Barney Roy, popular in the ring was held up at the back, and stayed at the back. Two Enables wouldn’t have beaten Cracksman.

cracksman

I deposited some more money with the punters in the last as the favourite came from another planet to upset the day. I enjoyed some of the Ascot atmosphere with friends before leaving, observing thousands having a great time watching a couple of nice bands. No trouble, well stewarded, a lot of very smart folk enjoying a well rounded event. And yes, Newmarket, children actually do go free. Were I to offer one suggestion to Ascot, it’s to install some kind of sub air system to Swinley Bottom, the one area that jeopardizes meetings and diverts runners.

It’s a success. I don’t say that about the National Hunt, expect a few broadsides, but its been an excellent flat season and I believe we are heading in the right direction there. Ascot knows its job and British Racing got this one right.

Pass the sherry someone? Will they make me a steward now??

gb33

 

 

 

 

National Hunt – a code in crisis

Racing fans comprise four sets of folk. The outraged form 49% (A). This group won’t hear speak or listen to any criticism of the sport, they either work for a racetrack, punt favourites over the jumps, or sit indoors with the curtains shut.. The disaffected, numbering 50% (B), a group whose numbers rise annually and constitute the biggest moaners in Racing. Escapees from the Betfair forum, sitting in their underpants at home whining about getting on. The third group go Racing, but only view it from corporate boxes, don’t drink beer, miss all the fights and haven’t a clue what’s really going on outside the box. (Group Q) Excuse merchants, apologists and evangelists form another strange sect (Group E). Then we have a small section of disaffected journos and pundits who’d better shut up or else (X)

The final 1% work for the BHA (Z). The persecuted ones. They would join St Peter being crucified upside down.

crucify

The executive are selected by the racetracks on rolling three year contracts. The current Chairman knew less about Racing than my cat when he arrived, presided over some notable fails like Mathew Lohn, then quietly and ‘humbly’ voted into another 3 year term..

Now tell me – why would you vote to Chairman someone who knew so little about the sport? Why did he then go about the removal of a more experienced board in favour of amateurs with equal skill level? Why are commitees informed a reduction in the programme is ‘off the table?’

Is the regulator looking after the interests of racing, or is the system of election of the Chairman dependent on what he does for  racetracks? Chairman of the BHA isn’t akin to golf club captaincy.

harman

Look, I know you all think I hate the BHA (Group Z). Come come now, I’m not that bad really, honestly. I’ve made clowns of them once, but I’d like to think their decisions were based on regulating and promoting the sport, not battling bookmakers for cash. Truth is the BHA  (Z) hierachy is never going to act for Racing for as long as the tracks sit on the board and appoint the leaders.

Turkeys rarely buy Xmas cards. More galloping about the ovals keeps the track bosses in tweed and BHA execs in badges. Kempton makes more money than any other JCR track (Group A) – except Cheltenham. Pop there on a Wednesday night and you’d swear the gates had been locked shut. It subsists on an attractive Levy payment for every race. Three runners or fifteen, its all gravy.

The swing to sandpits, to include the gothically dull Newcastle straight (A), needs runners from the available horse population, and owners. If you’re a prospective jump owner, up against wannabee’s like Rich Ricci (Q and E), forking out hundreds of thousands a horse, – you can afford 65 pence a purchase. Ricci stables his muckers the Mullins pad, coffee machine, babestation and minibar in every box. Regular owners on limited budgets can’t compete nor cover the exxes. And your trusty milker can only hack around 5 or 6 times a year. On the all weather, chances are you’ll do better. Even if you’re the only one interested if it wins..

549178-drunk-aussie-racegoers-steal-uk-headlines

It is a matter of pure fact belting out sand races at the rate of 3 meetings a day harms the winter code. Is there any chance a whole summer of jumps nobody cares about is a pointless exercise, for everyone except Plumpton? Or have i taken leave of my Scottish mind?

Jump Racing sacrificed on the altar of an engorged BHA all weather list . Months of 4 and 5 runner events. It’s not on, and time you fans stood up and demanded change.

This year, and with apologies the excuse merchants (E), the fields in jump racing have never been so poor. 3 and 4 runner events abound. When they’re strung out for 465 yards, this is what sporting people (B) call ‘uncompetitive’or ‘dull’- unless that is you like Formula one

racing

The ground isn’t firm. It’s good racing ground, so stop telling me a its akin to a bed of nails to a horse. Indeed they’ve been running all summer. And when the ground is good in April at Aintree – they’ll be running, this is what explodes the myth about ground..There’s simply too much racing and too few runners to support the code and it cannot roll on for 3 or 4 months in this vein every year, whilst we all sip champagne in our box, waiting on Cue Card. A couple of weeks ago we had 19 runner fields at Doncaster on the flat. 7/1 the field and 1/4 the odds if you’re a betting man. Competitive, and attracts people to watch on telly. Yesterday I watched Lydia Hislop (X) trying to make Wincanton sound interesting. She should have been awarded a DSO..

stiers

So Mr Harman and Mr Rust (Q E and Z) I know the issue of racing volume gets dull, but that’s because you refuse to accept it’s a failed system..  I fully accept your jobs depend on the goodwill of masters more interested in Levy than bums on seats. I’m staring at a Kempton card with 3 three runner races and a Carlisle card with a 2 runner heat. It’s your turn in the chair and you’ve got two years left to save a code so many love before you’re replaced by the fellahs who run Southern Rail (Q).

This is a sport very much in crisis, and you are tasked to act in the interests of the sport as a whole, even if the Trustees are more interested in levy grants. Do better than serve out your time and a 0.1 runner increase per race per year. We’ll all be pushing up daisies by the time you start delivering.

 

Or am I being too diplomatic??

ascot

ps. If you want to earn money from Betting, try enforcing a minimum margin on operators in return for hefty levy rate reductions. Not a tip you’ll get from the current crop of non execs..

Banks.(X)