5 Lions Reborn

What is 5 Lions Reborn?

Belmont Park reopened for racing Friday (September 18) following a three-year, $455 million redevelopment, ushering in a new era for New York horse racing.

A sold-out crowd of 6,000 attended the first day of racing at the rebuilt Long Island track, wagering almost $14 million on a nine-race card headlined by the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Japanese star Forever Young won the feature race, while all-sources wagering for the day totaled $13,997,422, according to BloodHorse.

What is 5 Lions Reborn?

Yet Dan Waugh, partner at Regulus Partners, pushes back against the idea that enforcement notices reveal a fundamentally non-compliant sector.

“Operators failing compliance checks is never a good look,” he says. Campaigners often claim that financial sanctions are priced in and that the Commission should revoke more licences, although Waugh does not believe operators view settlements merely as a cost of doing business.

Nor are regulatory breaches unique to gambling. Waugh notes that Tesco was fined more than £8 million for food hygiene failings in 2021, without parliamentarians demanding that it should be prevented from selling cornflakes.

What is 5 Lions Reborn?

Last month, meanwhile, Betfred announced plans to shutter 132 of its UK betting shops, reducing its workforce by over 600 employees.

Betfred CEO Jo Whittaker said: “We have tried hard to protect all our sites and the colleagues who work in them, but the combined impact of higher employer National Insurance contributions, wage inflation, increases in gambling taxes and wider economic uncertainty has left us with no choice.”

Kyle has been with Clarion since December 2023, joining from the world of sports journalism, subsequently becoming a LatAm-facing senior reporter with iGB.