Has it really been almost a year since racing’s last bout of Budget-related anxiety? Apparently so, because having successfully persuaded Rachel Reeves to exempt racing from a (modest) hike in betting duty in 2025, here we are again, nervously anticipating Wednesday’s budget amid warnings that John Healey could effectively sound the death-knell for high-street betting shops.

Healey is widely expected to raise the rate of machine games duty (MGD) in the budget, a move which could, according to some predictions, lead to the closure of thousands of high-street shops with significant knock-on effects for racing’s income from off-course gambling.

The prospect of a significant hike in MGD this week was initially floated by a report from the Social Market Foundation (SMF) thinktank in June.…