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AJ, its not the rich who are affected. If you and I purchased a horse and ran it at Redcar in the race I mentioned, and it came fourth, we would receive the princely sum of £96.20, less trainer and stable staff percentage.
That can’t be right. However you dress it up, it cannot be right.
This will eventually have an impact. It’s notable that middle market/lower end market horses at both Tattersalls Book 1 and Book 2 – horses you would think might eventually contest Class 6,5 and 4 races – are not selling well this year. Why would they?
Why do punters always claim they are paying the levy when they are simply gambling out of self interest?
I see the Eggheads have let one loose again.
Further to what Max says, horses that have won this season have been going through the sales ring at Ascot and getting sold for a grand. It seems you can’t give moderate horses away at the minute.
It would be interesting to see the exact make-up of the levy in terms of who contributes the most:
Owners
Trainers
Bookmakers/Punters
Government
etc.If anyone has that to hand?
It would be interesting to see the exact make-up of the levy in terms of who contributes the most
Ooo! Ooo! I know this one. Bookmakers. Bookmakers pay 100% of the Levy. In turn, the HBLB contributed 57% of all prizemoney in 2009.
Prizemoney 2009
Horserace Betting Levy Board 57.0%
Sponsors 13.3%
Owners 15.6%
Racecourses 11.7%
Divided Race Fund 0.9%
Development Fund 1.3%
Order of Merit 0.3%[Source http://www.britishhorseracing.com/resou … eviews.asp]
Thank You NN.
So 57% of all prize money is contributed by the punters/bookmakers yet they don’t have any say in what happens?
Seems to me this Horsemans Group are a bunch of "takeout merchants" as one racing celeb put it.
Bookmakers contribute sweet FA, all that money is punters money, you can line bookmakers up with the "takeout merchants".
Irish, it’s time to put all that aside. The factionalism in horse racing is perhaps a bigger problem than the funding.
If the Horsemen and National Trainers federation united and boycotted two meetings – say, one at Kempton or Wolverhampton, and one minor jumps meeting, say, Fontwell or Sedgefield – the outcome would be illuminating.
Even better if they were on the same day. That would really hurt.
But what would happen?
Would punters go virtual? Or would they stay at home? Would they bet on dogs? Football?
Would the strike be unanimous or would a one-horse trainer like Christine Dunnett – the epitome of the trainer who would most benefit from an increase in prize money at the lower levels and who has demonstrated that she won’t join a strike – make the action pointless?
Doing something is better than doing nothing. God only knows what the 52nd Levy scheme will be like without action.
The punters in the betting shops would still turn up to the shops Max they’d just bet on the dogs, football and the virtuals too.
I agree we should all put our differences aside and bang some heads together but striking and not entering horses isn’t the answer – that will just prove to the bookmakers (who ultimately contribute the Levy) that British racing isn’t required.
You could show Flamingo Park, Toowoomba or The Vaal on the TV betting shops and punters would bet on it and there’s no levy payments that would need to be contributed, it would be 100% profit.
It’s easy for a trainer like Gosden or Stoute to boycott two or three race meetings – they don’t need the money, they have the big owners who are in it solely for the prestige and the love of UK racing. A smaller trainer like Dunnett relies on running her horses at these smaller meetings however much they’re racing for in order to make a living.
As we’ve seen before as a rule strikes don’t work – sitting around a table with a representative from the NTF, the BHA, the racecourses, a bookmakers rep and a punters rep and working out what each individual group wants and how to achieve that.
No doubt the levy payments would be far greater where all bookmakers based in the UK – with more and more money being wagered via the offshore firms the payments are decreasing. As things stand there’s no way to force bookmakers back to the UK other than via legislation or by making it worthwhile, image rights for UK racing? Refusal to broadcast pictures into non-UK based operators etc?
I don’t have the answer but the trainers want more prize money that can be achieved in a few ways:
a) increased levy payments
b) reduction in the number of races
c) increased sponsorshipa) These won’t increase unless the bookmakers are forced back to the UK
b) The trainers won’t go for this as they have enough problems entering a 58 rated horse as it is
c) Possible – though unlikely that racecourses will contribute any more money or will be able to sell race sponsorhip for more than £2,000 or so.Personally I’m slightly annoyed hearing the BHA tell us that the racecourses don’t want this or they don’t want that, this isn’t what they want but they stage racing two or three days a month, make a very good income from other outside methods (such as computer fayres, weddings, conferences etc.) as well as taking in a few quid from franchising food sales and possibly course bookmaker pitch sales and in some cases conference rooms for IR punters.
It’s all got rather messy and it will take a good 5-10 years to fix it, something which won’t happen while Dixon, Roy, Coward and co are happy creaming bits and pieces off the top of the pie.
So what’s with the eggheads comment? The punters don’t pay the levy they are gambling for their own personal gain …which is fair enough but why is it the punters who pay the levy ? In what other walk of life are you claiming ownership of money you’ve already spent .do supermarket shoppers say we are paying the shopstaffs wages or the companies corporate taxes? Every time you go for a pint you’re paying their bills.every single business that pays a bill is paying it with their "customers" money , money they chose to spend in whichever way they choose. Gamblers are the epitomy of self interest and greed – and I’m fine with that but don’t claim you’re the champions of the sport selflessly providing the funding . How many betfair layers on here are sending in a voluntary levy payment in their eagerness to fund the sport they love?
Max,
The Horsemen’s Group is an umbrella organization that includes, amongst other tri-acronyms, the NTF
From their website:
The Horsemen’s Group represents British racehorse owners, trainers, jockeys, stable staff and thoroughbred breeders.
Its constituent bodies are the Racehorse Owners Association, National Trainers Federation, Professional Jockeys Association, National Association of Stable Staff and Thoroughbred Breeders Association.
The British Horseracing Authority governs and regulates horseracing in Great Britain but all commercial activity is the responsibility of Racing Enterprises Ltd (REL), a company owned equally by the Racecourse Association and the Horsemen’s Group.
To put it into another context, the members of the Horsemen’s Group are the “players” and the racecourses are the “venues”.
To find out more about the Horsemen’s Group, its activities and the benefits it achieves for its members, please browse this website.
http://www.thehorsemensgroup.com/Were you aware of REL? I wasn’t
a committee is twelve people doing the work of one
a committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours
a camel is a horse designed by a committee
Thanks for that, Drone. I wasn’t aware the NTF were part of the Horsemen.Pete put up REL on one of the earlier funding threads. How on earth can anyone keep up with all these acronyms.
Irish, that’s one excellent post.
I can only speak from my experience, but of the thirty people I know in real life who frequent bookmaking establishments, only two or three would ever bet on virtuals. Dogs, maybe (but the percentages on BAGS are ridiculous), sometimes South Africa, but not virtuals.
I don’t think racing can survive 5-10 years in its present form, sir. I don’t think we have the time to wait. Too many low-to-middle ranking owners are leaving. The Rabble are just not dynamic enough to confront this and even when they do, they have no teeth.
I would have stopped Chandler and Stan James et al from having anything to do with British racing ten years ago by taking out injunctions and *ducks* I would have dealt with Betfair far harder than they ever have.
You’re a fan of US racing. Look at the Californians – they’ve made Betfair sweat blood.
No. We need to take the funders to the brink – even if we don’t come out intact on the other side. The stakes are high.
Warming Trends
Levy is 57% of prize money. Bookmakers pay 100% of Levy – which comes from punters. I am a punter. Therefore I pay 57% of prize money. It seems simple to me.
No max you don’t pay 57% of prizemoney that would be about £40+ million. What you need to ask yourself is why you claim you do. Do you shout about how your money pays the ladbrokes staff national insurance contributions ? Because it does ,your money pays their employers tax , your money buys the toilet cleaner they use in ALL their shops etc etc etc etc . But none of that is quite so honourable as paying 57% of prizemoney is it . Fact of the matter is if you place a bet and you lose that’s just not your money any more
I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, Warming Trends, nor can I see the relevance in what you’re saying in the context of this discussion. So I’m just going to pretend you don’t exist.
WT – the losses from punters/poker/games pays for the entire Ladbrokes staff’s wages from the MD to the cleaners in the shops, CS staff, call centre staff, the marketing they do AND their levy contributions come directly from a percentage of their profits on BRITISH horse racing.
Directly betting on British racing helps fun British racing.
I wouldn’t bet on virtuals and most of the people I know wouldn’t but in my experience there are enough people who would to make it worthwhile keeping betting shops open without the British racing being shown which is where we have a problem because no British racing would mean no levy funds which would result in a heck of a lot less being contributed to the prize money kitty ie. instead of racing for £2,000 everyone will be racing for £500 or even less. Racecourses are already practically giving race sponsorship away, at one course it’s less than £2,500 to sponsor an entire 6 race card.
Stopping VC, Stan James and eventually the other firms and Betfair (originally based in Hammersmith) leaving these shores has been a major problem for British racing but ultimately something they can do very little about without government legislation.
RFC is another matter entirely, following the various recent developments in on-course bookmaking RFC and the various bookmaking bodies brought in a "Gold Flag" system which would be great for racing and ensuring that on-course punters and racegoers get the best value, though it’s not been well publicised relative to the other nonsense that RFC are engaging in so I doubt most would know what the Gold Flag scheme is.
I’m not sure that helps your case, to be honest Max, and in the context of the "I pay 57% of prize-money by proxy" argument, I think the points made by Warming Trends do have some merit.
Your extrapolation is a bit too crude/linear, I fear, and regardless, it’s part of the wider "Bookies should pay more" argument, which I think is one that Racing ultimately cannot win (imo).
The current funding scenario essentially leaves the BHA as custodians of the begging bowl; with all the conotations of passivity that conjures up. Where are the graspers at the BHA? Where are the lateral-thinkers who can look beyond the current unsatisfactory arrangements, and develop financial models that are sustainable, and remove (or at least reduce) the hopeless reliance on the bookmaking industry?
The fact is, that there aren’t any. Those in charge at the BHA isntead invest time, effort and money into ill-considered PR stunts like Racing For Change. This points to an outfit who have not only have no strategy, but whose tactical decisions are also highly questionable.
The bottom-line is that there isn’t enough talent at the BHA to take on ruthlessly efficient, profit-driven, real-world orgainsations like bookmakers. And there apparently isn’t enough talent to look at things from a alternate perspective, and implement a radically different approach to funding.
It’s ******, basically.
And on that happy note…
I’ve never understood why some people on here continually take the view that bookies don’t need racing and shouldn’t be expected to pay a fair return for the ‘product’ – just like any other business in this country paying a fair price to their suppliers.
As mentioned before Bookmakers last year, according to Paul Struthers on Radio 5, made £100,000,000,000 pounds profit from British Horseracing last year.
Just think about that figure – Of course it can technically be argued that Bookies don’t need British Horseracing but that’s a lot of profit to find from somewhere else – a lot of Income Support going into their fancy fruit machine.
Also, admittedly it was a couple of years ago the last time I laid eyes on their trade rag but each month they list the top 20 (IIRC) betting events from the previous month and in June 2008, again IIRC the top 8 events where races from Royal Ascot and this was in the same month as Euro 2008.
Bookmakers need racing far more than they ever care to mention please let’s not all far into their trap of believing otherwise.
Thanks for that, Drone. I wasn’t aware the NTF were part of the Horsemen.
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