HBLB consultation on Levy audit threshold closes 26 October

The Horserace Betting Levy Board is closing a consultation on 26 October into whether to narrow the profit threshold at which smaller and mid-sized bookmakers must commission an independent accountant's report to verify their Levy liabilities.

The review, launched on 25 August, targets a gap in how the Racing Levy is administered: operators with assessable profits from UK racing betting between £250,000 and £500,000 currently have to supply HBLB with an annual accountant's report, even though the Levy itself is only charged on profits above £500,000.

According to HBLB, 18 operators fell within that £250,000 to £500,000 band in 2025/26, with a further 16 sitting just either side of it. Each report can cost up to £2,000, a sum the Board acknowledges falls on bookmakers who may ultimately owe no Levy at all.

HBLB has said the reports exist to give it "necessary assurance" in its duty to collect the correct amount of Levy, and has stopped short of naming a new threshold or a date for any change, saying only that narrowing the band is "under consideration" as a way to cut the number of operators caught by the requirement and reduce their administrative burden.

The figures used to set both the reporting requirement and the Levy charge relate specifically to profits from qualifying bets on British horseracing, rather than total stakes handled or an operator's wider corporate revenue, and the reports are used by HBLB to confirm whether a Levy liability exists in the first place.

The consultation sits alongside a separate and more contentious decision on the Levy rate itself. In March 2026, the Labour government confirmed the Racing Levy would remain at 10% on qualifying profits above £500,000, and rejected a push to extend it to bets placed on overseas racing fixtures, SBC News reported.

That outcome followed a renegotiation process that had been separated out from the wider Gambling Review under the previous Conservative government. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport pointed to the need for stability after other gambling tax changes, including the rise in Remote Gaming Duty from 20% to 40%.

Brant Dunshea, chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, criticised the decision to leave the rate unchanged. "It is disappointing that it has taken almost three years to determine there should be no change in the Levy rate," he said, adding that British racing had engaged with ministers throughout the process and presented evidence of a widening gap between the cost of staging the sport and the returns it receives from betting.

For racing's governing bodies, the rate decision reinforced concerns that the sport's funding needs have taken a back seat during a broader overhaul of UK gambling regulation and tax policy. The administrative consultation now closing offers smaller operators a narrower, if less consequential, concession on cost rather than any change to the underlying 10% charge.