[mattomac]

If you were worried about gambling you'd ban football. i would imagine more is bet in a weekend, perhaps even on one fixture, than in a year of greyhounds.

Ironically Wimbledon AFC I believe built there new ground on some of the dog track.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The argument Zarb-Cousins is advancing is that the gambling lobby is an extremely lucrative one able to excert weighty pressure on legislators. To continue an activity opponents regard as cruel to animals.

Does that argument stand up? There will be a relatively small number of people who gamble only or mainly on dogs in England, but It's nowhere in terms of the big gambling sports. As David says, the social harm is going to overwhelmingly from the bigger sports (especially football and racing), and problem gamblers won't gamble any less because they can't bet on the 1.03 at Sittingbourne any more.

I don't really see any reason to doubt the official line- dog racing is a reasonably sized industry in England (and Ireland too, where it's not banned) and it would lose them votes if it was banned.

And gambling just got a hefty tax rise in the Budget. In my view, it should have had that in the first budget, but that's not a particularly powerful lobby. cf the lobby that makes it impossible to build anything like the homes we need for the fast growing population (some of the same lobby being very liberal on immigration numbers).