Labour receives £1 million of gifts from betting firms

As the controversy over senior Labour figures accepting gifts continues to unfold, it has now emerged that the Party has received more than £1 million in donations from gambling bosses within the last couple of years, and that Sir Keir Starmer himself is among those to have accepted expensive gifts from the sector.

The gifts raise questions around whether government officials will fairly regulate the gambling sector, or whether they will be put under pressure by the industry to soften legislation.

In total, the Labour Party has accepted £1.08 million from senior figures within the gambling industry, including tens of thousands of pounds from Richard Flint, the former chief executive of Sky Bet, and Lord Mendelsohn, who chairs Evoke, the company behind William Hill, Mr Green, and 888.

Keir Starmer is known to have received a gift of £25,000 from Peter Coates, the leading figure behind Bet365, during his campaign for the Labour leadership in 2020.

Other figures implicated include various members of the Cabinet, including the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who received £20,000 in donations from gambling bosses to fund her private office. The Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and the Transport Secretary Louise Haigh both accepted tickets for football matches from companies with links to betting firms.

The Labour Party has been perceived as having a close link to the gambling industry since the liberalisation of Britain’s gambling laws under Tony Blair, but is now under pressure to tighten the sector again, with the think-tank the Social Market Foundation recently calling for gambling duty to be doubled.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, commented to The Times, “We shouldn’t be accepting expensive gifts because it calls into question the independence of MPs and cabinet ministers … In due course, it will call into question their ability to make an independent judgment on that industry.

“The only way to show that is to get this [gambling reform] legislation through in double quick time, and to tighten it up, particularly around advertising.”