The Racing Integrity Handbook and Anti-Illegal Betting

In this Part 1, it’s Martin Purbrick, Chair of the IFHA Council on Anti-illegal Betting and Related Crime, who conducts a Q&A on the values of the Racing Integrity Handbook.

Staged at the 58th International Conference of Horseracing Authorities in Paris on 7 October, it’s now the IFHA Council creation of the IFHA Council on Anti-illegal Betting and Related Crime.

Q: As the Asian Racing Federation Council on Anti-Illegal Betting & Related Financial Crime being transferred to the International Federation FHA, how meaningful is this transition and why?

A: The global impact of the ARF Council has expanded, but the ARF Council itself is largely an Asia entity, and of the current 25 Council members, 18 are based in jurisdictions of ARF members.

While only seven are based in non-ARF jurisdictions, all seven non-Asian Racing Federation jurisdiction Council members are based in Europe, so the Council has no members in the Americas.

Given the increasing international global recognition of the Council, the absence of members from other regions where racing is conducted is a weakness that limits the impact of the Council.

In the longer term and hence we are moving under the auspices of the IFHA., the new IFHA council will have a truly global outlook as part of the global racing federation.

Members of the IFHA Council will include new leaders from the Americas, Europe, and other less well represented regions, and the IFHA Council’s research and writing will increasingly focus on the Americas and Europe, in addition to Asia.

Lastly, importantly, the IFHA Council will engage with stakeholders around the world to influence racing and other sports leaders, government policy makers, regulators of gambling and sport,

It will improve intergovernmental organisations, and law enforcement agencies regarding the threat of illegal betting and other crime, to horse racing integrity, and sport in general.

Q: Martin Purbrick, Chair of the IFHA Council on Anti-illegal Betting and Related Crime Q: What can the racing industry expect from the new IFHA council?

A: The IFHA Council will present horse racing as the leading sport dealing with the impact of betting on integrity and global thought leader on how illegal betting presents a challenge to all sports.

We should openly say how horse racing has historically developed highly effective structures and the processes to manage the impact of betting, which other sports should learn from now that all sports are ‘betting sports.’

Whilst the IFHA Council will project the strengths of horse racing to an external audience, we will also be partners to any racing authority that would like assistance to influence stakeholders in their own jurisdiction of the impact of illegal betting.

As online betting, legal and illegal, has expanded in the past 10 years, one of the responses from gambling regulators has been to tighten restrictions on legal betting, which drives consumers to illegal markets and lessens betting revenue to horse racing through levies, taxes, or grants, etc.

A key role of the IFHA Council is to support racing authorities and racing operators to persuade regulators that legal betting on horse racing is not the problem but that illegal betting markets have a far more serious negative impact on society.