It’s turning out to be an annus horribilis for the Social Market Foundation which has once again undermined its already damaged credibility with an even worse revelation. The think tank apparently doesn’t trust its own research – and we’ve heard that before. Only a few months ago the SMF embarrassingly owned up to the failure of its recommended affordability checks and had to call for their withdrawal. This time, it’s the failure to recognise the damage an MGD rise to 40 per cent would cause to so many leisure venues. The think tank that really didn’t think that proposal through was caught out by blogger Guido Fawkes who had a bit more success lighting the fuse on the barrels of miscalculations penned by the anti-gambling conspirators lobbying the Houses of Parliament.
A draft of the Social Market Foundation report upon which the chancellor has built most of his proposals for a hike in MGD has been accidentally published with comments from directors doubting the validity of its claims.
Seizing on the release, rightwing political blogger Guido Fawkes highlighted annotations from individuals including the SMF’s director Theo Bertram and chief economist Gideon Salutin that “the upsides of its tax hikes lack evidence.”
“A draft of its report, accidentally published with the staff’s internal comments still attached, shows SMF top brass conceding the tax would close venues, cost jobs, and hit bingo halls and seaside arcades,” wrote Fawkes. “Their own director asked whether the jobs claims were overly optimistic.”
“On the much-disputed relationship between gambling and its supposed ‘harms’, Bertram warned colleagues ‘we need to be careful that we don’t overstate causality – the harms are associated.’ Asked whether a causal link between machines and gambling-related crime was backed by the research, Salutin admitted: ‘Unclear, so I’ve changed it to correlation.’”
Responding to the release, Jenningsbet CEO Greg Knight said the SMF has been “totally discredited” by the revelations, asking “who cares if the facts get in the way of their narrative?”
“It claims to be a ‘non-partisan’ think tank… Really? The SMF is using taxation as a smokescreen to achieve its real aim, namely to see gambling abolished.”
The SMF is already licking its wounds after the embarrassment of having to disown its own conclusions on affordability checks. Having led the call for the checks, the SMF has done a 180-degree turn and called for them to be halted.
Blow them up
Greg Knight said… “It claims to be a ‘non-partisan’ think tank… Really? The SMF is using taxation as a smokescreen to achieve its real aim, namely to see gambling abolished…
Originally published on Coinslot on November 2, 2026. Republished with permission.