While yesterday's press release on the Gov.com website is geared in the main towards issues arising from online casino style and number games, along with the National Lottery and underage gambling in general, the inclusion about the prospect of carrying out so called affordibility checks appears intended to apply across the board and is not welcome news for the horse racing industry.
It has been mooted that there will be a loss limit of £100 per month unless a punter is able to provide evidence that demonstrates they can afford to splurge away a higher amount, which presumely would involve filling out an income and expenditure sheet, with evidence of incoming income via bank statements, along with copies of bills.
When many of us welcomed curbs on those highly addictive, trance inducing FOBT'S, others who saw the bigger picture sounded out a warning that 'they' would not rest on their laurels and that it was the first of many planned intrusive steps into the personal choice world of betting.
What to some of the 'we know what's best for you' brigade may seem to be an out of proportion risk with a resultant loss that affects the monthly ingoings and outgoings of the household finances, may to those having to readjust for the rest of the month be felt as nothing more than a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.
Those of us who have reached the age where we are walking across the firing range of all the nasty diseases and who regularly check for lumps, starting with the neck, on to the armpits and so on, not only object to having the daily routine restricted due to the moderate to medium worry of picking up and having a severe reaction to covid, but find it totally ridiculous that some would deem us in harms way when the wine may be a Toro Loco from a lower shelf, or the cider a Taurus, as we are on a month of budgeting due to golfers missing fairway after fairway, or a poor day on the horses when after the planned bets went down, you tried to smash your way out of the red on the Kayf Tara in the bumper run in testing ground, and maybe even go in one more time on the Oppenheimer owned maiden on the AW in the evening.
It is crucial to remember that for thousands following these events are lifetime hobbies and four days entertainment from taking annual leave to watch the Cheltenham Festival, or to spend four consecutive evenings watching a PGA Golf tournament, can be more entertaining and in most cases less costly than lying on a packed beach in Benidorm, which to some can be their idea of pure hell.
So, for the many who don't possess the best money management skills but manage, when the month starts on the wrong footing, to feed ourselves and are wise enough to keep something aside for a few bottles of red a week, what happens when we look at the total win and loss balance, then decide we might put something aside each week to pile into a plus and loss lifetime balance changing wager, whether it be an ante post Guineas bet on that Cheveley Park filly with Russian Rhythm as the second dam that beat only trees at Chelmsford the other week but looked the bees knees, or Patrick Cantlay for one of the majors, or how about the prospect of Elegant Escape loving Aintree and lobbing along without hitting his flat spot.
Well, anyone thinking on such lines better be landing one of these bets sooner rather than later as if the modernists who know what is best for you have their way, you may be unable to speculate with your own money and if the 'protection' rules decide how much you should be spending on sensible things like food and clothes, you may find that the couple of hundred quid you did on the first weekend of the month warrants an enforced sabbatical.
The irony of all this is that the horse racing industry needs your contributions more now than at anytime in recent memory and would love you to bet to your hearts content, leaving you with a Hardys rather than a Barolo, but are involuntary compelled to voice welcome announcements to these planned nanny state moves.
Where will this end? I know people who during the early years of New Labour rule managed to run up credit debts over £30,000 while earning a wage well below the national average. The debts were accumulated by what could be classed as an addiction to shopping. A need to snap up every new electronic gadget along with designer label clothing, and footwear costing hundreds that impress nobody.
If, as is likely, such impulses continue within these characters, then even if there is no credit available for similar sprees it is very likely that when their monthly wages go into their account they will exhaust a disproportionate amount on non essential shopping.
And what of alcohol - we already are told on every bottle of wine or beer we purchase within what the government medical guidelines state that you cross to the wrong side of the safety barrier once you consume the equivalent of a bottle and a half of red wine in a week!
At one time, if asked what would constitute a character with drinking problems several would cite that bloke from the Pogues as an example - needing to drink two bottles of Martini in the morning to instill in him the confidence to leave the house, when he would then head straight to the pub and stay drinking to last orders.
In fact, it's not far fetched to envisage that there will come a time sooner rather than later when alcohol will have to be purchased on your debit card, and where a buying limit will be forced that will be in line with the stupid guidelines. Though I guess your first venture over the limit may warrant a word of advice by the off licence or supermarket worker scanning the purchase, which would then be put on record.
And returning to racing, those in power who feel compelled to play along with this unwelcome interference, embracing it on the outside but underneath deeply worried about the consequences for racing's finances, are going to have to find a way of addressing the financial shortfall that will result if they are unable to make a separate case for the sport, to free it from the threat of the shackles being put on the casino style games.
Racing's balance sheet was suffering long before coronavirus took hold. Now, not only is the sport bracing itself for a severe financial fall out that the Government loan will only put a temporary plaster on, but an attempt to gradually recover the lossess incurred through the plague could be facing yet another budget buster. Both the short and long term implications are very bleak indeed.
Christmas theme continuing. This character represented Austria in the 1976 Winter Olympic skiing team but has long since established himself as a volksmusic singer and household name who incredibly retains his mullet, never seems to age, and is on the telly over there every time you switch it on.
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