Bookmakers May Have to Start Paying Their Way for Betting Sports

Bookmakers May Have to Start Paying Their Way for Betting Sports


Bookmakers head to Cheltenham recently rubbing their hands at the prospect of £500m of turnover. Profits from the next four days will also go a long way to providing the minimum £65m they must pay to horse racing through the annual levy.

But if sports bodies are successful in persuading the European Commission to adopt draft legislation currently being worked on in France, bookies will be forced to hand over a proportion of all sports-betting turnover to organizers.

The Sports Rights Owners Coalition (SROC) – a collective including the FA, the Premier League, Uefa, the England and Wales Cricket Board and the LTA – has seized on the development to push for the adoption Europe-wide of a 1% turnover levy on all sports bets.

That would be worth tens of millions to bodies who are calling for a "fair return" and demanding the levy as a means to tackle the growing threat of corruption in sport. "The threat of corruption and match-fixing poses major challenges for sports," said SROC's Nic Coward, who will be at Cheltenham this week as chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority. "It is also right that sport, right across the spectrum, with all that sport represents, receives a fair return. This French proposal is a huge move forward."

SROC hopes to influence the Commission's independent study investigating what would constitute a "sustainable financing model" for sport that was launched at the end of last year.

2018 mission hits Bristol

England 2018's World Cup bid recently its first foray into the regions as Brian Mawhinney accompanied Simon Johnson and Ian Riley on a fact-finding mission to Bristol. Lord Mawhinney, the Football League chairman, Johnson, the England 2018 chief operating officer, and Riley, its director of technical bid, held meetings with the two Bristol clubs, the local authority and regional development agency. The England 2018 delegation was seeking feedback about stadium-development plans and how this could be reconciled with Fifa's technical guidelines, which will be issued in mid-April. Further city visits are scheduled, with a trip to Nottingham tomorrow the next on the itinerary.

Pullein bet kills market

With Skybet sponsoring the inaugural Sports Journalists' Association sports-betting writer of the year award, the bookmakers Stan James and Ladbrokes sought some publicity of their own by opening novelty books on who would win it. But Ladbrokes is said to have felt compelled to withdraw after a big bet on the Racing Post's Kevin Pullein. The fears were unfounded as Pullein did not walk away with the prize. It is understood the betting regulator, the Gambling Commission, has not been alerted.

Bookmakers May Have to Start Paying Their Way for Betting Sports