The BHB today issued the following statement:
“”The Opinion Leader Research survey of punters’ opinions, presented at last Thursday’s AGM, has been widely misinterpreted in the press and on television with regard to the honesty of the betting industry. As a result, attention has been distracted from the more important messages in the survey about the way punters think the chronic underfunding of British racing should be tackled.
“”First and foremost, it is important to re-emphasise the fact that all the findings of the OLR survey represent the opinions of punters, not the BHB. The BHB itself is in no doubt as to the overall honesty of the betting industry.
“”However, OLR’s detailed focus group work and their subsequent opinion survey did show that honesty is not a quality which betting shop punters themselves associate strongly with bookmakers. This is reflected in the figure of only 17% of punters in the survey who ‘agreed strongly’ that the betting industry is honest. In his AGM presentation, the BHB Chairman was at pains to emphasise the words ‘agreed strongly’.
“”The presentation did not say, as some commentators have reported, that the majority of punters think the betting industry is dishonest. It is wrong to infer from the 17% figure that the remaining 83% of punters hold this view.
“”On the contrary, when the detailed figures are published next week, they will show that if punters who ‘agree slightly’ that the betting industry is honest are added to those who ‘agree strongly’ with the same proposition, then those who expressed the view, more or less strongly, that the betting industry is honest were in the majority, at 66%.””