Dave Mollet ! Who does he think he is ?

hibernia Wrote:

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> Do you think the punters that bet on horses with
> bookmakers and exchanges would switch to the tote
> if there was no other option?
> would rather swith to sports betting than have my
> edges taking away

hibernia with respect, you have no idea what you are talking about, but seeing that you are based in scotland i cannot blame you for your ignorance.

lets talk about rsa racing - we have no legal exchanges, interbet cannot be classified as one no matter how hard they try. we have bookmakers who bet to 140% as a norm. We have betting provided throughout the country from a single source and no competition. How would you like this scenario in bonny Scotland? You would be sportsbetting immediately if your feeble argument is anything to go by.

Barry Irwin is correct in his response. Anyone with a passion for the game would not support bookmakers under the current contribution criteria. It is my belief that ABC cannot be impartial to this as their funding comes from bookmakers.

whitehouse Wrote:

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> Hibernia dont listen to bi he needs punters to pay
> the stakes as he is buying and selling horses and
> makes his living out of horse racing,He buys
> horses like Russian Sage ,Gypsey Warning for what
> ever sells a share on ,makes the previous owner
> sign a confidentially clause as to the price
> ,makes commission on every aspect of racing and
> tells punters you are not a racing man!!.Tell him
> to fund his own stakes with his mates thats how
> racing started but horse owners thing its their
> god given right for punters to fund their game.Do
> you see any other sport funded by punters.


When people pay extraordinary prices for tickets to big-time athletic events, they are supporting the sport.

Racing does not do this.

All enterprises require funding.

This funding comes from a percentagle of the money bet in horse racing in the leading jurisdictions.

Sorry you don't like the manner in which I conduct my business.

I like racing in South Africa, which is why I would like to see it thrive and prosper.

Bookmakers and betting exchanges are parsites that do not pay their fair share. If they did, they would be welcomed as supporters of the game from which they derive their incomes.

The only thing a bookie can offer that the tote cannot is credit.

Ok...Hibernia is from Scotland and Barry Irwin for the USA, and these guys want to change horseracing in South Africa.
The conclusion i come to is that our Racing must be really good to attract such major attention rather than in their respective countries,or this is the only country that has afantastic forum like this being ABC...
Mr Irwin as a matter of interest last night in Churhill Downs The percentage they (US BASED BOOKIES ,USABET,BODOG etc ) were betting 138 % at the off.I read here that in SA the norm is 140 % as PYRAMID says,believe me,you guys are so far from the wayside it's Scary.In SA the bookies prices up Ante-post About 138 to 140 % and by the time they are off they are down to 120% , agreed that sometimes the pecentage will be a little higher,this could be due to many contribution factors,one being claims as they load with no time to adjust the betting,or a late scratching,or major maket moves due to SP bets.So you see mates percentage is nothing but theory,as a punter back your horse when you feel its right to.

We need to look at this issue from a 360 perspective.

Where is the reduction of tote income stemming from?

Well as stated above Tote pools on built on the back of the R6.00 a bet punter. I would guess that the losses are not coming from this core source of business.

We cannot compare the bulk of SA punters with happenings in Germany and Italy for a number of reasons. SA punters are largely under race educated, and in a lot of cases a lot may not have even received basic education. A poor person in SA cannot be compared to the poor in European countries as the economic situations are far different. The stark reality is that the poor are the ones who gamble most no matter which country you're in and the race industries of the world are built on the poor. We must then conclude that losses are coming from big punters and owners who cannot get decent returns on their bets and those who moved with technology. The bulk of SA tote punters have no access to information technology whereas even the poor do in Europe.

The operators need to understand their market and move with the times. The operators need to carry out market research and find out what the customer wants. I give you simple examples. I am in the Gold Circle region and therefore need to place bets at the crappy tote or on www.tabgold.co.za/ . I choose the website but I an not a fan of the site. It needs an update. A small issue, i like to see the horses name and number when placing a bet and name and number of the first four in a result. I can do this here www.hollywoodbets.net/ . The fixed odds boys are listening to their clientele and making life pretty easy in terms of placing a bet. I had a complaint with Hollywood's new site. The stake was resetting to R1.00 when the price changed. I submitted an online complaint via the website and it was dealt with the next day. I don't believe the same would have happened at GC - to many other issues by the sounds of things.

In conclusion South Africans will get more educated over time, they will have more access to technology, the economy will improve, there will be less below the breadline poor and racing and owners stakes will take a hiding unless the operators listen to the customer or BI and other owners get their way and bookies are banned.

Racing is about egos and ego stroking lets be honest. I know it first hand and am guilty of it on a small scale. That's why we post selections from time to time. We enjoy the praise we get when we get it right. That's not limited to posting selections but just about every aspect of the game including the operators who are too proud/egotistical to listen to the basics. Don't begrudge people with good business sense. Look at the monopoly and force them to act.

In ever speech I have delivered over the past 20 years I tell people that there are two reaons people play the horses, as follows:

1) so that, at the appropriate time, a person can utter the phrase "See, I was right!)

2) action.

Here here BI - Good speech

When all has been said and done, I truly believe that no matter who is running things, they will be accused of making mistakes. I suppose the winners are the ones whos "mistakes" return the best results for all stakeholders in racing.

Barry Irwin Wrote:

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> Greenbook, use your noggin.
>
> Prize money is down in most venues and the reason
> is that Betfair does not contribute its fair share
> toward prize money.
>
> German racing is on the very of extinction because
> too much money is bet with Betfair and bookies.
> Baden-Baden, its premier race course, has filed
> for bankruptcy.
>
> Italian racing...ditto.
>
> Is that not enough for you?


barry i recall from previous posts that you don't like the way UK racing is structured, but you can't deny the fact that contributions to prizemoney and sponsorship from the betting firms has more than doubled since 2001. that was when punter tax was dropped and the betting operators started having to pay.

unlike SA, in the UK all betting operators, tote, bookmakers and betfair alike all pay the same 10% of their betting revenue to stakes. hard to argue with that. maybe you'd say GBP100m+ is not enough, but it's double what it was less than a decade ago, and it's impossible to argue that bookmakers/betfair don't pay their share of that.

i am curious about all this money going onto betfair for german and italian racing. does betfair even offer markets on german/italian racing (i can't find any)? i'd have thought the issue there is more that racing in those countries is massively exposed to the popular increase in soccer betting, which is a sport far more ingrained into the local culture than racing ever was. that's not parasitism, that's just competition.

If punters thought about it, they would realize that betting with the tote affords them their best form of protection.

If owners or trainers want to bet, using proprieary information, they cannot hide it through the tote, but they can with a bookie.

Barry ...protection from what ?

Protection from betting coups? Fixed odds betting is a great incentive to cheat, at least when you can get a big bet on. Tote betting is completely exposed, the Tote board doesn't lie. This may not be what Barry meant, but it is nevertheless true.

If I understand one of the other posts correctly a R500 bet can shorten a price from 50/1 to 25/1 in SA then their is definitey no hiding from that.