IMPORTANT NEWS FOR ALL BOOKMAKERS

Transcription

1 THE GAMBLING ACT 2005 IMPORTANT NEWS FOR ALL BOOKMAKERS YOU MUST READ ALL OF THIS DOCUMENT VERY CAREFULLY. THINGS ARE CHANGING.IF YOU WANT TO WORK ON A RACECOURSE AFTER 1 SEPTEMBER AND COMPLY WITH YOUR LEGAL OBLIGATIONS AND THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE RACECOURSE PREMISES LICENCE, YOU MUST DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY. THIS DOCUMENT EXPLAINS HOW. YOU MAY BE REQUIRED TO TAKE ACTION BEFORE 1 SEPTEMBER IN PREPARATION FOR THE NEW REGIME. PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE IT TO THE LAST MINUTE. 1

2 YOUR IMMEDIATE ACTION IS OR MAY BE REQUIRED ON THE FOLLOWING POINTS: In order to be permitted to bet from 1 September, bookmakers and nominated officers/representatives MUST show photographic identification at the racecourse badge box. This should be in the form of a passport, photo-i.d. driving licence or NJPC authorisation badge for If you have lost your NJPC badge and wish us to re-issue it, please send us a cheque for 10 (inclusive of VAT) to cover our costs and we will endeavour to re-issue your badge by return of post. REMEMBER, NO PHOTO I.D. = NO BETTING BADGE. Because of the requirements of the racecourses premises licence conditions, they cannot accept the BRM vouching for you if you have forgotten your I.D., even if the BRM has seen you every day for the last nine years! If you have already been issued with your operating licence by the Gambling Commission, you should be prepared to present the licence (a photocopy is acceptable) along with your photo-i.d. at the badge box. If you are an Annex A holder (currently known as a Nominated Officer or Authorised Representative), and you are named accordingly in schedule y of the licence, you should present the operating licence (or photocopy) at the badge box along with your photo-i.d. Once you have provided the NJPC with a copy of the operating licence, we can update our database accordingly. When we have confirmed that when this is done, you need no longer present your licence at the badge box, although you may be required to present it to a Gambling Commission compliance manager. If you have not yet been issued with your operating licence by the Gambling Commission, but applied to the Commission by the 27 April 2007 deadline, you will have been granted continuation rights. We have obtained this information direct from the Commission and updated the bookmakers lists with a C if you have secured continuation rights. Authorised Representatives and Nominated Officers are considered by the Gambling Commission to have continuation rights the same as the operators for whom they work. If you have not yet been issued with your operating licence and you do not have continuation rights, you cannot bet until your licence is issued. Nor can your Nominated Officers or Authorised Representatives. All bookmakers in this position should liaise with the Commission without delay. Once your licence has been issued, you should provide a copy to the NJPC immediately. We can then update our database and you will be permitted to bet. 2

3 You should note that, under section 92 of the Gambling Act 2005, all persons who stand on your behalf in your absence must hold a written contract of employment. This applies equally to Annex A holders or Nominated Officers/Authorised Representatives who hold continuation rights. The situation regarding Nominated Officers for large-scale operators 1 is slightly different. Such persons need only show a staff badge and photo-i.d. at the badge box. Section 92 of the Act permits licensed operators to accept bets on behalf of other licensed operators. This does not legalise pitch renting. Any operator accepting bets on behalf of another operator must inform the NJPC in writing (a form will be made available in due course) by 1.30pm the previous working day (i.e. not Saturday or Sunday). The representative operator must use the insignia and itemised tickets, etc, of the original operator and comply with his (i.e. the original operator s) licence conditions. The fees payable to the Commission and the Levy Board will be borne by the original operator and we are inquiring about issues relating to taxation and other legal obligations. The bookmakers lists will be frozen from 1.30pm on 31 August 2007 until the end of the contingency arrangements. For the avoidance of doubt, this means that any transfers must be completed (including appropriate signed documentation and payment of fees) by that deadline. Transfers that have not complied with these requirements will simply not be registered. No transfers or changes of any sort can be applied to the lists during the contingency period. You MUST inform the NJPC between August 2007 if you have applied to the Gambling Commission for a licence in any name other than your current (i.e. pre-september) trading name. We can then change your name on the bookmakers lists accordingly. If the name on the bookmaker s list does not correspond with the licence (once issued), you will not be allowed to bet. If you wish to use a mobile telephone or any other telecommunications device, you must notify the RCA of your intention. A form to do this will be produced in due course. Because the telecommunications terms and conditions (Ts&Cs) have not yet been finalised by the RCA or communicated to bookmakers, the start date for these particular new arrangements is expected to be 1 October Further details will follow. 1 A large-scale operator is one who has three or more persons occupying qualifying positions. See the Gambling Commission website for further details, but essentially this applies only to Ladbrokes, Corals, Hills, the Tote and other large organisations. 3

4 If you are a public tic-tac, you must also provide photographic evidence of identity to the badge box personnel prior to racing and comply with the betting intermediary operating licence conditions applicable to tic-tacs. Essentially, those licence conditions replicate the current National Pitch Rules. You will be required, as at present, to hold public liability insurance to the tune of 2million. If you are insured through a bookmaker association, you need do nothing as we have asked the associations to confirm their racecourse members. If you are insured privately, you must present a copy of your insurance details at the badge box. YOUR ATTENTION IS DRAWN TO THE FOLLOWING POINTS Needless to say, you must comply with the requirements of the Gambling Act 2005 from 1 September This means you must adhere to your licence conditions and codes of practice. If you have not yet received your licence, you should check the generic licence conditions and codes of practice on the Gambling Commission website. Officially speaking, there will be no National Pitch Rules or Bookmaker Rules during the contingency period. Those National Pitch Rules that need to be retained during the contingency period will be subsumed within the terms and conditions of entry to the racecourse. Those Ts&Cs will be provided to bookmakers by the RCA next week and copies will be available at the badge box from 1 September. There will be no ABS or attendance requirements from 1 September. This means no opting in or out. If you wish to bet from outside the Designated Number (to be renamed Bookmaker Number ) (which would previously have required an opt-in ), you may turn up at the racecourse at your own risk. If there is a space within the Bookmaker Number for that ring on that day, and you are named on the official bookmakers list for the relevant ring, you will be allowed to bet in list position order until the Bookmaker Number is filled. Pitch allocation will be administered as at present, including in pre-existing new approved areas using the one-for-one allocation mechanism. NJPC will bear no responsibility for staff and travel costs, entrance fees or any other costs associated with fruitless journeys to racecourses. Because of impending redundancies, NJPC will not be resourced to provide an unofficial ABS that supplies telephone numbers of bookmakers above you on the list or anecdotal information about who may or may not be attending. 4

5 It is your responsibility to turn up in time for the pitch allocation. If bookmakers behind you on the list have already been allocated a pitch and all pitches within the Bookmaker Number have been taken before you arrive, you will not be able to bet. The ABS department has previously provided information to the joints suppliers/erectors re. attendances. This will stop. You should bear this in mind when attending race meetings (for instance, you may need to book a rental joint or your rails joint may not be pre-assembled). You should take into account that all of the previous functions of the ABS will be discontinued. Racecourses have been advised by the RCA that Bookmaker Numbers should follow the status quo for all meetings remaining in Racecourses will advise the NJPC of the Bookmaker Number at any new or transferred fixtures for 2007, or at any fixture where the Bookmaker Number has not previously been set. The pre-existing standby bookmakers (i.e. those beyond the extra ten who exist historically on the lists) will be added to the Bookmakers Lists for race meetings taking place from 1 September. It is not possible to apply to be placed on those standby lists either now or until the contingency arrangements end. We will endeavour to post the standby lists on the NJPC website, but may not be able to do so because of technical difficulties. However, if you pre-exist on a bookmaker s list at 1.30pm on 31 August 2007 (check with the NJPC website/office first), you can bet at race meetings if there are spaces within the Bookmaker Number for that particular ring. This will be administered by the BRM on the day. From 1 September, you may trade from more than one pitch within the same betting ring. From 1 September, you may offer place terms that vary from standard place terms but you MUST display your each-way terms clearly on your joint and ensure that your itemised tickets correspond to the terms displayed. You are cautioned to bear in mind that using non-standard place terms may cause significant problems, not only related to customer service. Any bookmakers who are found to be accepting bets outside of the racecourse Ts&Cs may be ejected from the racecourse. At the racecourse s discretion, and exercising due proportionality, any offenders may be barred from that racecourse and other racecourses for a defined period of time. Should you see somebody offering illegal gambling, you should report it to the BRM or racecourse security staff without delay. Please note that people using betting exchanges ( arbers ) are not considered to be betting illegally, although at 5

6 certain racecourses they may need to pre-obtain telecommunications authority from the management in order to facilitate their activities. If you have a dispute or a potential dispute with a customer, you must refer it to the BRM at the first available opportunity. You must not dismantle your joint or leave the betting ring until 10 minutes after the weighed-in signal on any race for which you have an unpaid winning cash bet. If, following that period, you still have an unsettled cash claim, you should leave the winning sum and the bet details with the BRM. Where necessary, the NJPC will continue to administer late pay claims centrally as at present. As soon as you receive it, the NJPC will require you to send in a copy of your entire operating licence or specified parts thereof. This will enable us to annotate the bookmakers lists accordingly, which in turn will enable the racecourse to be assured that you are licensed and, therefore, eligible to bet. If you do not have continuation rights or have not even applied to the Commission for a licence, your positions on the bookmakers lists will be frozen. You will not lose them, and they will be yours to sell after the contingency period (or, of course, if you subsequently receive your licence or decide to apply for one, they will be waiting for you once your licence is issued). Practical steps for the badge box and the betting ring It is advisable in the early days post-1st September to leave yourself some extra time to be issued with your betting badge. Your patience with the badge box staff and the NJPC BRMs would be much appreciated remember, they didn t invent the new requirements of the law and they are only trying to do a job. If you are the operator that is, the person named on page one of the operating licence you will be required to buy the betting badge yourself. It is not a job that can be delegated. Annex A holders or Nominated Officer/Authorised Representative must also present their own photo-i.d. to the badge box staff. For the avoidance of doubt, you cannot send a worker to the badge box with your passport and operating licence. Indeed if you have more than one member of your staff on the day who you expect to be acting as the bookmaker (for instance, if you plan to leave early to go to an evening race meeting), you should both present yourselves to the badge box (with photo I.D.) and obtain a betting badge each. Only one of you, of course, will be expected to pay the 5x charge and the betting administration fee for the NJPC. This way, if you have two reps, all three of you will be entitled to be in control of the joint during the day. 6

7 It is permissible for the bookmaker or rep to be operating the computer. However, a lone principal must be at the joint and not, for instance, on the steps of the grandstand. Background On 1 September 2007, a new licensing regime will replace the certificate of approval mechanism that currently authorises racecourses to provide betting on-course on race days. A consequence of this change is that the current method of administering existing betting areas on horse racecourses, through the NJPC and the National Pitch Rules (NPRs), also loses its authority. A Working Group has been established to consider appropriate administrative arrangements for existing betting areas from 1 September 2007 until 31 August The report and recommendations will be published shortly and comments will be invited from bookmakers and other stakeholders in the on-course industry. There will also be regional roadshows organised by bookmakers to present the finer details of the proposals and give all bookmakers an opportunity to become more aware of the arrangements and air their views first-hand. The arrangements detailed in this document apply to the contingency period only. New arrangements will be put in place when the longer-term administrative organisation takes up its duties following the contingency. The contingency arrangements We apologise for the somewhat authoritarian tone of this document. Capital letters and bold type are often perceived as aggressive! This has been done with the best intentions of drawing attention to the new requirements and helping us all bookmakers, racecourses and the NJPC to implement a new regime in a manner that is as seamless and problem-free as possible. Please note that neither the NJPC nor the racecourses have invented these arrangements for invention s sake; rather, the arrangements have been introduced in direct and exclusive reaction to the requirements of the Gambling Act as they relate to both bookmakers and racecourses. Nobody wants to see bookmakers being unable to bet because they do not meet the requirements of the Act, or racecourses being subjected to sanctions because they have failed to meet their premises licence conditions, so we urge you to re-read this document, take positive action as necessary and ask the NJPC for further details if there is anything about which you are unsure. Your co-operation and understanding is much appreciated. 7