Betfair challenges gambling curbs

ANY new rules applied to betting exchanges should be made across the bookmaking industry, a committee of MPs has been told.

Betfair, Betdaq and Sporting Options have written to John Greenway, who chairs the Commons committee overseeing the draft Gambling Bill, attacking its suggestion some exchange punters 'be identified, regulated, made subject to the appropriate levy arrangements and have their status checked'.

The exchanges, thrust into the limelight over recent allegations of users profiting from race-fixing, said they already have information-sharing agreements with sports regulators and can identify punters who abuse the system.

They accuse rivals of attempting to stifle competition. 'Major bookmakers are intent on strangling the exchanges with red tape and ultimately denying punters a betting platform that, for the first time, offers real choice, control and value.

The imposition of conditions on exchange punters would discriminate against one section of the betting public and create unnecessary bureaucracy for the operators and the new Gambling Commission.'

The letter concludes: 'Surely the best way to address the integrity risk is to impose these policies on all regulated betting organisations. This could take the form of a new code of practice that would require the operators of all the UK's 8000 licenced betting shops to reach the probity, openness and transparency of exchanges.'