Some thoughts:

Barriers - personally I can't see any problems with the current system. If you were to go with your proposal how would you determine which emergency gets which barrier when the scratchings happen at the same time (as they ususally do) - does the first emergency get the barrier from the lowest TAB number scratching or the lowest barrier number? How do you communicate to all the punters where the horses are starting from given that the printed stuff all has to be prepared prior to the scratchings? Dogs are a bit easier as the TAB number and barrier are the same.

Bookies percentages - can't really see how you could legislate to cap these. Sensible punters will look at the options available and use the alternatives if the bookies are being too greedy. I believe (although I could be wrong here) that the TAB percentages are limited by legislation. Currently competition between TABs means they all use roughly the same percentages anyway (14.25% for Win/Place rising to 20% for Trifecta/Quaddie are the Supertab percentages although the "rounding" rip-off effectively increases this a bit). Again there is plenty of competition (for win/place at least) so shop around for the best deal!

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