Brant Dunshea, chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, said on Wednesday that the sport’s ruling body will “urgently engage with the government to establish how we can work together to reduce the impact” after John Healey, in his first budget as chancellor, raised the duty on the profits from fixed-odds gaming machines in betting shops from 20% to 25%. The widely expected rise in machine games duty (MGD) was well below the doubling of the rate, from 20% to 40%, recommended this year by the Social Market Foundation thinktank, but Dunshea warned that the move could “still prove devastating for our sport” since it presented a “clear risk” that “hundreds, if not thousands” of betting shops nationwide faced closure as a result. There are about 5,500 betting shops in the UK and the average shop contributes approximately £25,000 to racing annually via the levy and rights payments for live coverage and data.
The SMF, Salutin added, remained “sceptical that such a small rise will have a significant impact on industry behaviour”. The share price of several major high-street gambling businesses rose after the budget speech on Wednesday. Shares in Entain, the owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, were up 8% shortly after Healey’s announcement while share in Evoke, which owns William Hill, rose by 3.5%.
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