Bets are on in Labour leadership race, but won’t somebody think of the punters?
Plans for gambling affordability checks are the thin end of the wedge. If the authorities can tell us whether or not we can have a flutter, how else might they decide how we spend our cash?
As the Labour Party tears itself apart, some of us have more than mere political interest at stake. When Angela Rayner resigned over her – now totally legitimate and innocent, says HMRC – tax faux pas on her multiple homes, I sensed opportunity in the chaos.
Within the hour, I was at the bookies: £40 at 20/1 said Rayner becomes the next leader of the Labour Party. Although I’m aware of the irony that if my 800 quid does come through, I may find myself to be the only working Brit to benefit from a Rayner premiership – an insurance policy of sorts.
For both my colleague and I – who backed Wes Streeting at a similarly generous price – there is a large element of delayed gratification. Unlike gambling on the horses or the football, we’ve held these bets for quite some time, furiously checking whether Catherine West really has a path to Downing Street. (I even placed a panicked fiver on her at 200/1.)
Yet for punters, there is another reason to want this Labour administration to fall: affordability checks.
A ‘does what it says on the tin’ type of policy, affordability checks would mean that if you want to gamble, there must first be a ‘check’ on whether you can afford to do so. In practice, this means sharing extensive financial documents with gambling companies. This is a serious invasion of privacy, and a policy seemingly designed to damage the gambling industry as casual punters will surely decide it simply isn’t worth the effort.
Affordability checks are also a clear restriction on individual choice. As Jon Bryan put it in his Letter on Liberty, Risking it All: The freedom to gamble: ‘If we accept state control over our spending on gambling, we concede the argument about individual choice and liberty in other areas of life, too.’
Like so much of modern legislation, however, there is a targeted group in the government’s sights. Take this seemingly light-hearted story: ‘England superfan set to sell house for World Cup trip’. The BBC offers no moral judgement – but surely, they should? Why do we make light of a 62-year-old man selling his assets to watch England at a World Cup, yet demand extensive financial documents from somebody placing a risky bet? Because there are acceptable vices to waste money on, and polite society does not see gambling as one of them.
But in all seriousness, if we accept that the government can tell us when we can’t afford something, what stops them from telling us we can’t afford something else? Santorini is lovely, but have you considered Scarborough? A new car would be useful, but a second-hand bicycle does the same job.
Further, is this not the same ideology behind government attempts to control where private pension funds are invested, already rejected once by the Lords? The principle is surely the same: that government seeks more control of what we as individuals choose to do with our money.
Andy Milne is entitled to sell his home to fund his trip to the US – it’s his money. We’re also entitled to back Catherine West at 200/1 before she cowardly rows the little boat carrying my hopes and dreams back to the shores of obscurity. That’s life.
Hopefully Rayner, an apparent lover of some of my favourite vices, saves the gambling industry. And the £800 would be nice too.
READ AND LISTEN
Letters on Liberty: Risking it all – the freedom to gamble
Listen to the debate from Battle of Ideas festival 2022, with Jon Bryan, Mark Littlewood, Ed Rennie and Brigid Simmonds OBE.
Is gambling at the forefront of the fight for liberty? You bet!
AoI Substack, 9 December 2025
Jon Bryan explains how the Budget tax rises were just the latest attack on players. PLUS: Jake Weston previews his case at Thursday’s Living Freedom Xmas Balloon Debate.
 | A guest post by
|