United Kingdom: Racing hit with financial blow as the government rejects request to review gambling levy Matt Hughes, The Daily Mail · January 14, 2021 at 10:00 pm Racing suffered another significant financial setback on Thursday with the Government rejecting the industry’s request to launch a formal review of the gambling levy this year. In a letter to Annamarie Phelps, the chair of the British Horseracing Association, sports minister Nigel Huddleston made clear that increasing the rate of the levy above the 10 per cent of profits which bookmakers are obliged to pay to racing will not form part of the Government’s current review of the 2005 Gambling Act. The reluctance to look again at bookmakers’ payments to racing is a major blow to a sport that projected losses of more than £300million due to Covid-19 before the pandemic’s second wave, which due to the prolonged absence of crowds has since exacerbated their financial suffering. The demand for an early review of the levy, which was not due to be considered until 2024, was a key part of racing’s Covid-19 recovery plan published last August.
