Talking Horses: Jockey Club’s Playtech deal defence is very leaky

A couple of months after causing widespread astonishment and dismay in the sport by selling some of its most precious naming and image rights to the gaming giant Playtech, Nevin Truesdale, the Jockey Club’s chief executive, stuck his head above the parapet this weekend, to defend the Playtech deal and discuss all things Jockey Club, in a fascinating interview with the Racing Post’s senior writer, Lee Mottershead.

The Playtech deal, Truesdale said, had been “a little misunderstood”. The rapid-play gaming products that will be allowed to parasitise events like the Cheltenham Festival and Grand National are, he claimed, “very safe and they’ve been around for years, with close links to racing. For us, it’s about saying, if this is already happening using brands closely associated with our own, and if we’re in a position to make some money out of it, shouldn’t we be involved?”

As defences go, Derby County’s back line in their disastrous 2007-08 Premier League campaign was watertight by comparison. It has a big hole in the middle, where the argument should be. “Misunderstood” is the first giveaway, the first word that chief execs (and politicians too) tend to grab for when they do something that everyone else thinks is a terrible idea. In politics, it is the sure sign of an imminent U-turn. In business, unfortunately, five-year contracts are much more difficult and expensive to unpick.

Of greater concern, though, is Truesdale’s persistent failure to see the Playtech deal in the context of the huge regulatory change which is certain to be unleashed on Britain’s gambling industry long before the contract even hits halfway. Those “close links” between gaming – on fixed-margin casino products – and betting with variable margins,