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BHA warn of protests over punter checks
The Guardian
|April 09, 2026
The chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, Brant Dunshea, has revealed the sport will consider more direct action protests as they continue to battle against government plans to introduce affordability tests for punters.
A one-day strike last September that led to four scheduled meetings being cancelled played a pivotal role in the government abandoning the increase in tax on betting from 15% to 21%, which the BHA estimated would have cost £330m to the industry.
The BHA have followed their “Axe the Racing Tax” campaign with a coordinated attempt to persuade the government to think again about affordability checks, which, if introduced, would require up to 120,000 regular gamblers to provide personal documentation in order to continue betting, according to research from the Betting and Gaming Council.
Independent modelling conducted by the global accountancy firm EY has found that up to 44,000 could switch to black market operators as a result, which would cost tens of millions of pounds in racing’s betting turnover, already down £2bn since 2021.
This story is from the April 09, 2026 edition of The Guardian.
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