Change of view

Many of you have asked me why the 'view' of my blog title has changed geographical location from my office to my home, and why I've suddenly cut down the amount that I'm writing.

The reason is that with my job at Betfair having recently changed so that I have responsibility for regulation but no longer for our public positioning, I have been asked not to blog about industry and company issues. Rather than stop writing completely, I have only been publishing things which cannot be construed to be a Betfair view.

This blog has been a useful communications channel for me in my role running our external affairs, but for some people it has now become a cause of confusion as to whether it is an official Betfair channel of communications, or just my blog.

With responsibilities changing, it's now the latter, and is therefore confined to non-industry issues for the time being.

So if you've kept coming back in the last ten days wanting to know my thoughts on David Zeffman's article about betting exchanges; the Ways and Means hearing in the US; the sports integrity survey in PR Week; Paul Roy's interview in the Racing Post; the reaction in Australia to calls from Betfair's Andrew Twaits for betting to become account-based; apparent evidence of the growing black market, judging from EU Commissioner statements; the latest with regard to France now that legislation is in place; or rumours of an attempt to get horsemen to strike; I'm afraid that I didn't publish my view on any of them, but instead merely wrote them up for my own record. Maybe my draft blogs will be like the Beatles' long-undiscovered back catalogue, and one day will all get published at once!

In the meantime, I'm afraid you're confined to anecdotes about where I've been and what I remember from my past, which will no doubt please those of you who have asked for less corporate-speak and more stories!