Approximately £80 million will be the Levy income for the year that ended on Mar. 31, 2021, the Horserace Betting Levy Board announced on Monday. The figure is a result of provisional submissions to date from most Levy-paying bookmakers. Originally, as the COVID-19 pandemic progressed in the UK, the HBLB had estimated a Levy return between £76-£85 million. Racing in the UK was halted from mid-March until June 1, 2020.
HBLB Chairman Paul Darling commented, “There was no British racing for the first two months of the Levy year and it was far from certain when racing resumed in June 2020 as to what the level of betting activity would be in the months that followed. We have also seen Licensed Betting Offices either closed completely for parts of the year or open with restrictions.
“Since June, we have attempted to balance on the one hand our desire to commit substantial extra support for the sport from our reserves with, on the other hand, the uncertainty around our own ongoing future income.
“We spent £96m in the past Levy year, providing around 50% more to prize money than normal in recent months, as well as £3m towards costs of new regulatory measures to ensure that the sport can take place in accordance with COVID-19 protocols. It is to the credit of all those involved that fixtures have taken place without interruption since June.
“On the basis of £80m income, our reserves at the end of the 2020/21 Levy year stood at just over £40m. This will give us the flexibility to consider further significant investment in the months ahead, as the Board has had in mind the importance of having sufficient resources for the recovery phase from Covid-19.”
The British Horseracing Authority welcomed the news, and BHA Executive Director Will Lambe said in a statement, “Today's news shows how racing continues to provide great excitement and entertainment to the public and is a fun and responsible way to enjoy betting.
“It's a credit to the commitment and passion of all our participants and to the great stories that racing generates through our jockeys, trainers, owners and the staff who look after our horses.
“We thank all the media who have brought these stories to the British public over the last 12 months, including our racing channels and ITV sport.
“We thank the Horserace Betting Levy Board for the work it has done over the past year to support racing through this crisis, increasing its expenditure so that prize money levels could be maintained wherever possible, and providing additional funding to racecourses.
“We also thank our colleagues in the betting industry who do so much to promote racing to their customers. These results demonstrate the potential for growing the public's engagement in racing, the benefits this can bring to the tens of thousands of people employed in both our industries and to the country as whole, especially in rural economies.
“As British racing battles to recover from the financial impact of COVID, this is an encouraging moment as we strive to achieve better funding for our world-class industry, including a fair and sustainable Levy.”
Currently the British Horseracing Authority and its industry partners are developing proposals to put to the HBLB for using the £21 million of loan funding from the UK Government. An agreement on prize money from June 1 and after is now expected to be hammered out by the end of May. In addition, industry executives will be examining the detailed figures for betting on racing over the past year as part of the work towards longer-term reform of the Levy and addressing the challenges faced by British racing, particularly with regard to its international competitiveness.
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