Labour took more than £1m in donations and gifts from gambling firms

Senior figures accepted gifts from betting firms in recent years – throwing fresh light on the party’s links with the gambling industry, The Times reports.

The revelations come amid a fierce row which has overshadowed Labour’s early days in office, with senior ministers, including Starmer, being forced to swear off taking free clothes from Labour peer Waheed Alli.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves (below) accepted three tickets to a musical last year from the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), alongside £20,000 in donations from betting firm bosses to fund her private office, before the election.

Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, accepted a £3457 ticket and matchday hospitality from Entain, the company behind Ladbrokes and Sportingbet, for the England v Denmark European Championship semi-final at Wembley in July 2021.

And Transport Secretary Louise Haigh took £1421 worth of gifts, including tickets for the 2022 League One final between Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley from the BGC.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, took a free dinner ticket work £700 from Allwyn, the National Lottery operator owned by the Czech billionaire Karel Komarek.

During his leadership campaign, Starmer received £25,000 from Peter Coates, chair of Bet365.

The Times reports that Labour have accepted £1.08m from the gambling sector, much of this from casino owner Derek Webb, which donated £750,000 this year and £300,000 in 2023.

Webb is a supporter of gambling reform and has backed the successful campaign to restrict fixed-odds betting terminals and other causes linked to the sector.

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Labour has also money from Richard Flint, the former chief executive of Sky Bet and from Lord Mendelsohn, whose firm Red Capital Limited is linked to the gambling sector.

Former prime minister Tony Blair enjoyed a cosy relationship with the sector by liberalising betting rules allowing the industry to flourish.

The BGC is chaired by former Labour MP and Blair-era minister Michael Dugher, and employed the former Labour MP Anna Turley as a consultant.

It sponsored the Daily Mirror party at Labour conference in 2022 and hosted the new gambling minister, Baroness Twycross, at the Grosvenor Casino in Liverpool during the Labour conference last month.

Tom Watson (above), a peer and the party’s former deputy leader, has been a paid adviser to the world’s largest listed gambling company, the PaddyPower owner Flutter Entertainment, since 2020.

Graham Stuart, the former Conservative gambling minister, and Alex Davies-Jones, the former shadow minister, accepted £444 tickets to the Ivor Novello awards by the BGC before they took up roles overseeing gambling policy.

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And former Tory MP Scott Benton was forced to resign his seat when he was caught in a sting offering to table parliamentary questions, leak a confidential policy document and lobby ministers in exchange for payment from gambling industry investors.

Iain Duncan Smith (below), the former Conservative leader, said expensive hospitality and gifts “shouldn’t happen full stop”.

He told The Times: “It makes the public think there’s one rule for them, another for everyone else.

“We shouldn’t be accepting expensive gifts because it calls into question the independence of MPs and cabinet ministers.”

Duncan Smith added: “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.”

A Labour spokesperson said: “Everything has been declared transparently. While the Tories dragged their heels in office, Labour has long pushed for better regulation on gambling, which we are looking at closely now we are in government.”