For years I have wondered what percentage of total tote pools are contributed by the small investor.Someone knows...My guess would be in excess of 80% of all pools.By "small", I mean punters who wager $100 or less as their normal bet.

It would be interesting (and not difficult) to see a tote running along the lines of a betting co-operative.A system where the shareholder gets a fair return on their investment.A system that excluded the sharks who move in for the kill with big dollars when they spot a juicy pool.

Any method devised to exclude the predators would necessarily have teething problems.I had in mind something like this.......

Clearly a registration.

A limit of $100 on each of the available pools.Win,,Place and Exotics..

Multiple bets permitted on each pool provided that the total wager does not exceed $100 per pool.

I feel that by placing a ceiling on wagers final dividends would improve considerably.
Primarily because they would not be forced down by massive bets towards the close of betting.

It would eliminate the current situation where a horse is paying $3-50 at the jump,but when we see the final market, (usually half way through a race) the same horse is paying $2-50 or less.In other words the betting market would stabilise.

Pie-in-the-sky ??? Maybe....On the other hand maybe not.Tote operators are looking for a profitable return on their investment.It might be in someones interest to run this kind of operation..

My own feeling is that there are thousands of "small punters" out there who would flock to this type of tote.I would.

We spend our lives being ripped of by the entrepreneurs out there.The legal profession,,real estate agents,,motor vehicle salesmen,lending institutions,,,,ad nauseum.....We are being ripped off by professional punters,, let's fight back...

my guess is that one of the biggest culprits are the bookies, both oncourse & online, who have to lay off huge amounts just prior to the jump.

my guess also is that is why there has been an apparent decline in unitab div's, because, as i understand it, one of the larger online bookies stopped laying off thru the nsw tab & moved to unitab.

80% of the punters might be small, but I reckon it's usually something like 10% of the punters provide 90% of the pool...