French Racing

[dave jay]

The meeting is the latest stage of a process that began in April 2006, when the EC gave notice to France of its concerns about lack of competition in the national gambling sector, which keeps out other operators.

France is not alone. Responding to complaints from private operators such as Ladbrokes and Stanleybet International against ten member states, the EC has finally lined up six for special attention over the free movement of services – in these particular cases, involving sports-betting services, which are deemed to include horseracing – as laid down in Article 49 of the EC treaty.

– RP

As our own Tote monopoly is being broken up so is the the French PMU, does this spell disaster for French racing or will they just have to come up with another way of funding it, like we have had to?

[Galejade]

Dave,

As someone who has a racehorse in France I think it will be a disaster for French racing if the PMU monopoly is lost.

We won a Saint Cloud claimer on Tuesday for which the winning prize was 10000 euros to which has to be added the 63% premium because the horse was French bred. Imagine winning around £11250 for an English race particularly a claimer! It means that winning a normal handicap at a reaonable(non provincial) track pays your training fees for the year.

Owners, trainers and stable staff facilities are second to none as indeed are those for punters. The problem is you must back on the PMU and the atmosphere whilst not being is desparate as Southwell on a wet monday is not matching York, Goodwood Ascot etc except at very big meetings such as the Arc,

I believe the PMU put around £325 million into racing last year compared to the English bookmakers £90 million cf their total profits of alomost £900 million.

It is a vexed question as to what the sport of horse racing is all about. To me as an owner-breeder it is more akin to human track athletics rather than to roulette. I know many punters disagree but I think it a nonsense that Bookmakers are the big, almost only winners out of UK racing.

[dave jay]

French tote (PMU) 2006
Turnover – €8.106 billion
Return to punters by way of dividend – €5.9bn (72.8% of turnover)
Takeout – €2.21 billion (27.2% of turnover)
Takeout is split as follows:
French government – €1.03 billion (12.66% of turnover)
PMU expenses – €468.8 million (5.77% of turnover)
Racing’s share – €653 million (8.06% of turnover)
Sundries – €58 million (0.72% of turnover)

… these are the figures for the French tote. I see the contribution to racing is 653M euros, considerably more than our racing has ever had.

[Tony25]

Being active in European Bookmaking circles and having runners in France i`m like “piggy in the middle“ at the moment, a couple of observations:-

The “hold“ will be lower for 2007 as the pmu have reduced takeouts,winpool is now a little over 12%!!…..The way UK margins are going Bookmakers wouldn`t get the better of the PMU when it came to offering value, this is not a Mickey Mouse tote system unlike ours!

The French authorities are under immense pressure from Brussels to liberalise their Betting market , from my understanding they are willing to liberalise the online market for sportsbetting if the Bookmakers will play ball by paying French tax and meet certain criteria …………..however,these restrictions won`t satisfy Article 49!!

The French are their own worst enemies in that they have arrested Bookmakers for taking bets on French Racing despite the fact that these Bookmakers had recognised licenses, the CEO of Unibet (Petter Nylander)and the Directors of Betandwin (Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger) are on bail to French courts despite EU directives, the rulings of Gambelli and Placanica don`t allow for this behaviour by any member state of the EU!!

I for one doubt the PMU will be affected in the short to medium term, if theirs one thing we can learn from the UK its that Bookmakers are not willing to pay a proper price for Racing, in fact im totally disgusted with the situation at home, prize money is shameful and training fees and associated costs are the highest in Europe!!

Galejade…………Congratulations on your win, i take it your horse was LAST STORM, must admit we had one eye on the race but i didn`t fancy taking on WUTZELINE, if you know anything about racing in Germany this horse would have an h`cap mark of about 38 French, at the weights the winner should have had about 5KGS to find which is probably 5 legnths in France (3.5 in UK),we simply needed one more run for an h`cap mark !!

Talking about prize money you are right if you purchase a French bred, our 2-y-o won a non pmu race in Vittel and picked up nearly 14K, as we expect him to be at least listed class this was a stroll around the park for him.

Prize money is excellent

[dave jay]

Thanks for the reply Tony .. interesting that the PMU take-out is only 12%, perhaps its British bookies that should be worried about them and not the other way around?

I admire the way the French have handled this unwanted interference though, they haven’t done what our government has done and pretended it was all their own idea.

[Galejade]

Tony,

You are quite correct Last Storm is our horse. After claiming her we attempted to get her to settle before putting her up in distance and on Tuesday she settled relly well and I am sure has improved by going up to 10F. The trainer is in top form too!

I also thoroughly agree with your comments on British Bookmakers. As far as the french position is concerned various friends tell me that the PMU’s position is historically stronger and longer than either the English Tote or Bookmakers and that even if the monopoly is legally broken it will take a long time for the French to change their betting habits. I hope they are right – but have considerable doubts.

[Tony25]

Galejade,

Congratulations for winning the h`cap yesterday with your horse LAST STORM (Deauville),looked fairly easy to my eye although i think horses racing close to the pace had a distinct advantage throughout yesterdays card, i actually thought you where a “good thing“ as the recent third to PRINCE DE VATI and a very useful WENDEL was worthy of a mark higher than 32.5, i would expect the h`capper to raise you about 3kg for the win !

Incidently the horse you beat in the St Cloud claimer WUTZELINE won an hurdle last week in Cagnes, he`s going for another tommorrow at the same track,if he jumps a tad better he looks a useful hurdling prospect,wish i had claimed him now!!

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