Rural Lobby Puts Betting Affordability Checks on Its Hit List

The Countryside Alliance has listed affordability checks on online betting among 27 government policies it says have damaged rural Britain since 2024, as part of a new campaign due to launch at Westminster on 14 September 2026.

What’s actually changed

Rural campaigners say a series of recent policies have increased pressure on farmers and rural businesses, with the Countryside Alliance calling for a “rural reset” with government after identifying 27 policies it says have hit farmers, rural businesses and countryside communities since 2024.

Alongside farming and firearms issues, the Alliance has highlighted betting affordability checks, proposals affecting trail hunting and game shooting, and changes to the tax treatment of double-cab pickups.
On its own website, the organisation has been more explicit still:
its count of at least 27 measures runs from the family farm tax to the employers’ National Insurance hike, and from restrictions on shotgun ownership to the imposition of affordability checks on betting.

The campaign, called Campaign for the Countryside, will be formally launched at Westminster on 14 September.

Former NFU president and crossbench peer Minette Batters is among the headline speakers.

The event will bring together politicians and representatives from farming, rural businesses, horseracing, greyhound racing, shooting, hunting and angling
– an indication of how closely the Alliance links betting policy to the rural racing economy rather than to online casino play alone.

This isn’t the first time the Alliance has raised affordability checks in Parliament. In a House of Lords debate in May 2026, its chairman noted that
the Gambling Commission was due to decide whether to approve the rollout of affordability checks on online betting, and that when the previous government announced these checks three years earlier, ministers had said they should be “totally frictionless” – a promise the Alliance said the pilots had not kept.

What it means for you

If you bet on horseracing or greyhound racing, or hold an account with a bookmaker that also takes bets on rural sports, this campaign is a reminder that affordability checks remain contested territory well beyond the online slots debate this site usually tracks. The Alliance’s argument is that checks designed to catch problem gambling risk applying friction to ordinary racing and sports bettors in rural areas, where betting shops and on-course bookmaking are woven into the local economy. Nothing in this campaign changes how affordability checks currently operate on your account, but it does show that pressure to loosen or reshape them is coming from outside the industry itself, not just from operators or the Betting and Gaming Council.

Worth noting for context:
Remote Gaming Duty is set to increase from 21% to 40% from 1 April 2026
, a rise the Alliance’s own budget briefing flagged as a further cost pressure on the sector, even as it welcomed the exclusion of remote horserace betting from some of the same changes.

The bigger picture

The 27-policies campaign sits squarely within the wider tension between the government’s ongoing Gambling Act reform programme – including affordability checks, deposit limit changes and rising remote gaming duty – and lobby groups who argue reform is landing hardest on rural and racing-linked betting rather than the high-harm online products it was designed to target.
The Alliance argues the countryside contributes more than £300 billion a year to the economy and supports more than four million jobs, while also playing a central role in food security
, and it wants affordability checks weighed against that backdrop when Westminster considers further tightening. Whether the government responds with any concessions specific to racing and rural betting, or treats this as one grievance among many in a broader rural policy row, will become clearer once the campaign formally launches and MPs are lobbied directly on 14 September.

Sources

• FarmingUK – Countryside Alliance demands ‘rural reset’ over 27 policies
• Yorkshire Post – Labour has announced 27 policies harmful for rural Britain, Countryside Alliance says
• AOL – Andy Burnham urged to ‘reset’ relationship with rural Britain
• Countryside Alliance – Tim Bonner: The countryside comes to Westminster
• Countryside Alliance – Trail hunting ban: “Illiberal, disproportionate and out of step with voter priorities”