TRADITIONAL bookmakers yesterday lost the argument that betting exchanges should be subject to stricter regulation including the individual licensing of their customers.
The Government, in its response to a joint parliamentary scrutiny committee’s report on the draft Gambling Bill, said any legal distinction between “backers”, those who bet on a horse to win, and “layers”, those who bet on a horse to lose, would “introduce unnecessary and unwise regulatory loopholes”.
It also dismissed the suggestion that non-recreational users be limited to the amount they could lay before being classed as professionals as “arbitrary”.
“The government does not see any difference between someone walking into a betting shop and someone logging on to an exchange,” Rob Hartnett, managing director of Betdaq, a betting exchange, said.