Method or madness?

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the follow-up to the Fontwell Park race name story which I blogged about yesterday.

Yesterday, the reason for us not being able to call one of our sponsored races the "Betfair pays £7m in levy maiden hurdle" was that it was a "political message". But a further response given to Fontwell by the BHA today states that the reason is actually that they don't want us to include the part that we pay on our international business. They say that (as I explained in yesterday's post) we actually pay £6.2million in statutory levy, and the additional £1m (and change) is a voluntary donation which they are not happy to refer to as levy. So we can call the race the "Betfair pays £6.2m in levy maiden hurdle" but we can't call it the "Betfair pays £7m in levy maiden hurdle".

Is it just me, or is that just plain weird? The reason our international contribution is a voluntary donation is that there is no statutory mechanism by which it comes as levy. The BHA is, sensibly, anxious to get levy on bets placed on British horseracing, wherever the bet happens to be placed: the non-statutory nature of the international portion is therefore doubtless a frustration for them, and you would think that they would do everything they could to imply that it is money they are entitled to, rather than because we believe it right that we should pay it, so that other betting operators might follow suit in giving it.

Instead, they have fallen over themselves to point out that it is nothing more than a donation, which just emphasizes that it should be passed around on an annual basis to whatever the donor thinks is the most deserving cause.

I'd be fascinated to know the logic by which that is thought to be the most sensible approach.

Political statement?

The second race on the card at Fontwell's forthcoming Cheltenham preview meeting, on 10th March, raises an interesting question: what constitutes a fact and what constitutes politics?

Betfair's proposed name for the race was the "Betfair pays £7m horseracing levy Maiden Hurdle", which is, I grant you, something of a mouthful.

But it's also a statement of fact: last year, Betfair paid £6.15million in compulsory levy on British horseracing from UK customers (that is, 10% of our gross profit from those customers betting on British horseracing, in line with other UK bookmakers), and an additional £1.25million in voluntary levy from our overseas customers betting on British horseracing (in contrast to most other UK bookmakers).

So, it's not an opinion, as "Betfair pays the right levy Maiden Hurdle" would be. It's a straight statement about the fact that we pay the horseracing levy (and how much it comes to), which you might think was justifiable to promote given that an extraordinary number of people seem to be unaware of it. I often get told that the trouble with Betfair is that we don't pay tax or levy, as if we were not based in Hammersmith and licensed in the UK.

But Fontwell have called us to say that the BHA have asked for the race title to be changed, on the grounds that it is a "political statement".

Surely there can't be anything wrong with letting people know what levy we pay, can there? Why would the BHA not want people to know?