United Kingdom betting operators are expected to pay between £90 million and £100 million to the country's horseracing industry next year as the horseracing levy, late last week, was finally set after an embittered battle of back and forth.
The levy, a 10 percent fee paid on bookmakers’ United Kingdom racing gross profits, goes toward funding the horseracing industry and was agreed to just shy of Friday’s deadline.
The two sides have been at loggerheads because the betting industry, according to published reports, sought to halve the levy while the horseracing industry lobbied for an additional £50 million.
The Financial Times reports that bookmakers will likely pay around £20 million more than they originally wanted to. Though there is some relief among the country’s betting industry that revenue from exchange betting, overseas wagers and, most importantly, lucrative fixed odds betting terminals, is not figured into the levy scheme.
Having agreed to the 10 percent levy, bookmakers have relinquished their demand for rebates for signing up to Turf TV, the racing industry’s television service.
The racing industry, in return, will add between 100 and 104 races, on Mondays and Tuesdays, between June and August.
The United Kingdom Horserace Levy Board is currently undertaking a review on how to modernize the levy. The board’s final report is slated for submission on April 30, 2009, to Gerry Sutcliffe, the country’s minister for sport.
According to a prepared statement, the British Horseracing Authority, the sport’s governing body in the country, hopes the modernization will take into account the aforementioned income streams -- fixed odds betting terminals, especially.