Punters left at a loss as bookies go on strike

Turf war between bookmakers and British Horseracing Board leaves gamblers frustrated - apart from one who got away

Britain's army of disaffected workers, including striking firefighters, militant rail workers and unhappy teachers, has been bolstered from an unlikely quarter. The 800 on-course bookmakers are in revolt against a charge imposed by the British Horseracing Board (BHB) and due to come into effect on April Fool's Day.

In protest at having to pay 10 per cent of their gross profits to the BHB for data on each race, the disgruntled on-course bookies have been taking industrial action. They refused to price up the first event on each card at Lingfield last Saturday, Kempton, Exeter and Wolverhampton on Monday and at Musselburgh, Taunton and Southwell on Tuesday.

The result has been chaos at the racecourse, where punters have been forced to queue at the Tote pool-betting windows to place their bets.

As in the stock market, the laws of supply and demand create cut-throat competition in the betting world. Odds are worked out for each horse based on the amount of money placed with racecourse bookmakers before every event.

These starting prices (SPs) are transmitted to all Britain's 8,000 betting shops, ensuring gamblers across the country get the same odds on their bets. Without SPs, off-course betting shops would have to set artificial starting prices, which critics claim could raise the margins of profit for the bookmaker and deprive the typical gambler of bigger winnings.

For years, the on-course bookmakers, who were exempted from betting tax in 1987 in a drive to encourage people to attend race meetings, have paid a fixed fee of £132 a year plus £15 a day for lists of the races they attend. But the on-course bookies are aggrieved because betting shops make money from other sports. Ten per cent of their gross profits for horseracing is going to be much lower than the amount levied on bookies who work only at the racetracks.

"We might have a problem but the betting public have an even bigger one," John Stevenson, chairman of the National Association of Bookmakers, said. "What the big bookmakers want to do is rip them off by getting rid of us. If there are fewer racecourse bookmakers around, then inevitably less competition means higher margins for the High Street bookmakers. We are having an early-day motion introduced into the House of Commons next week and we want further discussions with the Levy Board and the BHB, although we don't have much hope in that department. But if we can't get movement on this soon we will be pursuing further action."

For many individual bookmakers the increased levy will hit hard. "I work 200 days a year and, with the £15 daily list rate on top of my £132 annual fee, I pay £3,132 a year but after April I will have to pay £30,000 a year," John Farquar said. He regularly travels to 15 of the country's 57 racetracks and was among 36 independent bookmakers at Musselburgh on Tuesday catering for 1,500 racegoers.

But the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB), which represents most betting shops, claimed the 10 per cent charge helped level the playing field between the two factions.

"Betting shops may have other sports on which they make money but we pay 15 per cent tax to the government, which the on-course bookmakers do not," Tom Kelly, chief executive of the ABB, said. "If you take into account what we have to pay, with the new charge we are forking out 25 per cent of gross profits compared to the 10 per cent they are grumbling about. We have relied on SPs from the racecourses for as long as anybody can remember and we don't want to change but if starting prices are unviable because there is no decent profit margin we need to do something."