Gamscare

It's the biggest issue facing us - Josh (and his sodding) Ap (iafi)

Twitter @RacingWhat

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Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode 16 of season two of The Rap, The What's Racing About podcast. The podcast that hopefully is going to help you get a lot more out of your watching of UK and Irish horse racing. Most of the time these casts write themselves, and normally, having been up at York this last couple of days, I'd be eulogising about what a fantastic race course York is. I will be talking about the upcoming Epsom Classics. I'm also really sort of interested in doing a cast on the kit that people use, the resource databases that they go to, the software that punters use, the resources that they use in coming up with a bet. I'm really interested in finding out what you use. I'm all ears to hear that. But instead, it this cast is gonna be something which has come up over the last sort of couple of weeks, which I must admit I wasn't all over to start off with. I am now, but I think it was possibly because A, I didn't have the initial bandwidth, it didn't sort of register with me, and then when it did, I was gonna sort of just laugh it out of court. I didn't think my fellow punters would have any truck with this, but no, it seems that this is something which we have to be aware of. What am I talking about? Josh Appiaffy and his GamScore app. This is an app which has been developed by the uh said Mr. Appiaffi. And before I go any further, he up until now was probably regarded as one of the good guys, one of the leading lights behind Betfair when it launched. He put together the Racing for Rewards website, which I hope and I guess you're possibly all a member of. If not, you should be. It's a good way of rewarding you for your interest in racing and whatever level that may be. So you know, Josh Appiafe, up till now, a good guy. Until a couple of weeks back, we get this edict which comes through that he has launched, or he's going to be launching in the autumn an app which uses open banking and AI to provide frictionless checks and also monitor the use of unlicensed operators for that read, black market operators, and to educate users about the risk that they might be facing. The app is called GamScare, it's called it should be called Gamscare, it's called GAMS Score, and as I say, it utilizes open banking to provide a live view of you, the punter's financial and gambling activity, and it it claims, we shall see, it claims to be able to identify changes in betting behaviour, which therefore can flag up financial stress at an early age. Well, that all sounds very good until you realise that you are, as a punter, are gonna have to be providing your banking data to an as unnamed yet app or an as young unnamed authority behind this app, and bookmakers and operators are gonna have access to this information to see if you have the financial clout to be able to bet. Now, that does not require much in the way of commentary. Just look at X Twitter over the last few weeks and just see the universal hatred basically that this has received from punters across the board, seasoned punters, professionals, two-pound wimbet guys. Nobody has got a good word to say about this, and quite rightly so. They can see, or we can see, that's gonna kill racing single-handedly. It's a massive invasion of privacy, which has been required to let's not forget, spend your own money. I don't think anyone's gonna comply unless you are gonna be mandated to, more of which shortly, to actually have a bet. What why would you? Why would you as a punter sign up for this having to provide all this information to unknown an unknown entity? And you know, you have read and seen the litany of examples of data breaches that have taken place over the years. So, you know, your data given away like this could be in the hands of who knows what if this ScamScore app is not ultra secure and tighter than a duck's ass in terms of its online security. Why would you even get involved with an app like that? Unless unless it was the only way that you could have a bet. Is that likely? Well, let's see what the British Horseracing Authority have had to say about it. And I quote, a BHA spokesman said the governing body had made it clear its opposition to affordability checks, which they have done, albeit somewhat late in coming to the party, but yes, they have said that. The BHA has made clear its opposition to affordability checks, which it said were being introduced without scrutiny by MPs and which did not strike the right balance between consumer protection and freedom. This is the key bit. GAMSCOR is an interesting intervention into the gambling debate, and we know the team there have held meetings with a range of stakeholders, including from British Racing, as they look to launch their product. An interesting intervention? That hardly sounds like a killing this thing at birth, which is what it deserves, by our industry leadership. It sounds to me that they are testing the waters to see if they think that this is going to be something that the BHA can put its shoulder behind in order for us to have an affordability checks put upon us by the back door almost by a seemingly very reasonable route as a way to protect what will largely be the rump of racing, because the vast majority of people are gonna say, fuck that, I'm not gonna get involved with it, I'm off the black market, and racing's gonna crumble. If the BHA can't see that that is the direction of travel for most punters, they're not really very much of a leader, are they? If they haven't actually wanted to kill this at birth and talk about it as being an interesting development, it worries me. It worries me for the future. Personally, I think that race is populated by three groups of people. The gravy trainers, people that are, you know, almost like the last helicopter out of Hanoi, people that are gonna bleed racing dry right up until the end in the next five to ten years, and want to protect their little part, their little seat on the gravy train and will not get involved in putting their head above the parapet and calling this out for what it is, the death knell of British racing. The second group are, if you like, the look away and laughers, people that just don't get it, people that are either too big in the racing world, big trainers, big owners, it's not really going to affect them. They will make a living out of racing in some way, shape, or form, however racing sort of continues. Or people that paradoxically are too small, the people that go into a betting shop, bet £1, £2, don't really understand what betting's all about, can't really see the problem, and yeah, I'll sort of sign up to something like this. It means I can continue to have a bet, why not? And then there's us. The people in the middle, people that get it, people that wish that it was different. There is a band called New Model Army, and they are great, and you should check them out. The Master Race is one of their best singles, and a line, there's a couple of lines in it which has resonance with me. It talks about the opposition, we ain't doing so well, uh, our understanding is weak, and our knowledge is small, and then it goes, and though we scroll frustration on a backstreet wall, most of us can't even spell bastard. Great lines, great lyrics. It sort of puts me in the mind of us. Possibly our understanding is very far from weak, and our knowledge is really rather big, but all we seem to be able to do is just scroll our frustration on a backstreet wall. All we seem to be able to do is to highlight this to ourselves in news groups on X when we go racing, isn't it terrible? Look what's coming down the line at us. I'm gonna be leaving to go on to the black market. Nobody seems to actually get it, and nobody in Purillos of Power seems to get it, and nobody that we, New Model Army Brigade in the middle, as frustrated punters in the middle, seem to have any access to the levers of power to be able to prevent this catastrophe, and that's not a big word, it is a catastrophe that is coming to bite us all on our collective asses, seemingly in the next few months, if Mr. Appiafi has his way and the BHA have their way, or certainly the next few years when affordability checks come in in any way, shape, or form. What can we do? Well, not a lot. I have written to my MP, I suggest you do the same, just sort of outlining one of the effects on the bookmaking industry, and therefore the tax take that a government will make from reduction in betting. If nothing else, that should appeal to a government that is under threat from its fiscal policies that needs to take as much tax as it can do from the working population. So, you know, you can make the case out for this decrease in the government's tax take from betting. You can talk about the effect it will have on the horse racing industry, an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people, that is still the envy of the world, that is still something that gives us an international sporting stage, a place on an international sporting stage, something that represents the hereditary status of Britain, something that's well-versed into the British culture. It's going to end several hundred years of horse racing as a cultural touch point to the British people. If none of that appeals to you, then surely just the civil liberties aspect. We are being asked to go through a process that enables us to spend our own money. This is not a credit check, we're not asking for credit. We are being asked to provide information to enable us to spend our own hard-earned, already taxed income on something that is still legal and viable. Betting. Don't you think that has some sort of a contrarian approach to trampling on your civil liberties? Isn't that worth even just a short a short email to your MP? I think it is, and personally, I think that's the only way that we're going to get this across. Talk to MPs, engage with them, tell them what is coming down the road at us as punters, at them as a government, at the exchequer as a source of fiscal responsibility. You know, they're going to be losing tax pounds if this ever does see the light of day. And just hope. Hope that that has some sort of resonance. The gambling commission ain't on our side, they're the anti-gambling commission. They don't have anybody on there from a bookmaking or a punting background. We aren't going to get very far if we rely on those in the traditional sort of corridors of power to get our point across. We've got to do it ourselves, and as I say, you can start by writing to your MP. That's what I've done, and I suggest you do the same too. That's it for this cast. Again, a little bit negative, and I apologize for that. Uh as I say, I will be back talking about the things I talked about at the start, about about York, about the Epsom Derby and Oaks, about software that I'm interested in what you use. All of that's for another day. This is the biggest subject that I can think of to talk about at the moment. Certainly the biggest subject of facing racing at the moment, and is likely to for the next several months, broke years, and all the while that all the while that racing still has a pulse. Sorry to be so negative. That's me over and out for this particular cast. Be lucky.