For your interest, this is a copy of a letter I've sent to the Financial Review tonight. Will be interested to see if it's published?

TAB Vs Betfair

How many times have we heard this story before?
'Protect us from the evils of golbal competition'.
All sorts of bad things will happen, and if we believe Tabcorp's chief executive Michael Piggott , even "a jockey having a shotgun pointed at his legs and told he'd be kneecapped if he won a race".
Of course, such diabolical happenings won't occur so long as the status quo is maintained.
What a load of beeswax!!
Didn't work for my textile business, why should such arguments work for Tabcorp?
Still, Tabcorp has considerably more to protect than I ever did.
They enjoy profit margin's I'd only ever have dreamed about. Not stock to carry, and better still been allowed to take advantage of the technological leap we've enjoyed and the dramatic increase in turnover without having to pass on one iota of the savings back to their customers. Their 'margin' has remained intact. Wouldn't we kill for a business like that!! Maybe not kill, 'kneecap' perhaps!
But, as they say in the classics, all good things must come to an end. Trust a global competitor to throw a spanner in the works.
Simple solution? Kneecap the global competitor. So far, has worked with the NSW and WA State Government's who, on the advice of their racing ministers have rolled over easily to the vested interests. Not to mention their own vested interests in gaming income. As to the interest of their constituents? Why should they care?

Since when did State Governments determine the terms of global trade anyway?

Fortunatley, our Federal Government has more spine. The quantum leap in technology has ushered in a new world on many fronts. Tabcorp has the choice of going down kicking and screaming, or getting with the progam. As we all should have learnt by now, yielding to the bellyaching and arguments of protectionism by the various TAB's, Racing Bodies and vested interests to stop the clock simply won't work,

Name withheld.

In the event that you publish this letter, albeit in an edited version, the only reason that I would prefer to have my name withheld is that I hold accounts with TAB's and they have the right to close accounts soley at their own discretion. This would be an inconvenience.