I thought the forum has been a bit quite, debate wise, recently so thought it was time to try and get one started.

My topic for this week is "Does the Racing Industry deserve to get 5% of each bet I place?"

In the recent discussions regarding Betfair several people have mentioned that they have a moral issue with betting with Betfair since they "dont support the racing industry". I have heard (although I don't know if this is true or not) that Betfair have approached the Australian racing authorities with proposals to share revenue but have been knocked back so far because the amount they have been offering (between 1% and 2% is the rumour) is insufficient compared to the 5% or so they get from the TABS.

The question is does the industry deserve 5% of everything I bet? My personal opinion is that this amount is too high and the whole industry in Australia is very inefficient. For example within 1 hours drive of my home there are 3 venues that have regular TAB meetings (Canberra, Queanbeyan and Goulburn) and several more that have non-TAB meetings. Why have so many clubs if they are not financially viable without TAB support? It would certainly save a lot of money if clubs were combined and you would get better racing conditions as well - it would cost less to keep one track in excellent condition than have 3 tracks in average condition. In the case of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Goulburn there were 62 meetings last year, of which 52 were covered by Tabcorp - why not run all these at the one track (logically Canberra) with 1 meeting each week.

According to the figures I have there were around 140 different venues used last year for racing covered by TABCORP with a large number of those only running a few meetings per year (in some cases only 1). By combining the smaller clubs into a large regional club (based on geographic regions around Australia) you should be able to save a huge amount of money and provide better quality provincial tracks. This should allow the TABs to reduce their deductions from each pool to give better returns to the punters and allow operations like Betfair to contribute at a lower rate.

So what does everyone else think - would this be a good idea or have I lost my mind (assuming I had one to start with)?

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"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

[ This Message was edited by: becareful on 2003-04-07 13:28 ]