Bookies fear budget hit but gaming machine self-harm killed off the old-fashioned shops

A wholesale plunder of local communities via casino-gaming took place and racing was content to sit on sidelines Has it really been almost a year since racing’s last bout of Budget-related anxiety?

Apparently so, because having successfully persuaded Rachel Reeves to exempt racing from a (modest) hike in betting duty in 2025, here we are again, nervously anticipating Wednesday’s budget amid warnings that John Healey could effectively sound the death-knell for high-street betting shops. Healey is widely expected to raise the rate of machine…