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http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 … bookmakers
British racing’s fixture list has expanded to such an extent that it is now impossible even for the finest minds with nothing else to do to get on top of the form.
This has been at the bookmakers’ behest. They want to create a sport that attracts manageable punters. So they have set about creating, with their collaborators, one that is essentially unfathomable for those without inside information. Their idea of perfection is the roulette machine or the computerised race – one that ensures 16% of everything wagered goes into their pockets, one that caters for the mugs. Why is racing losing ground? Because it is gradually dawning on the public that those who have always hated the sport are right: it is becoming a mugs’ game.
Just more spiteful sour grapes from a player with no handle nor edge on the day to day racing fayre. Because they have given up the ghost they want it excorcised because it miffs them greatly that there are copious amounts of product out there that they cannot find a way into.
As an aside and wrt to Racing post editorial policy, that Zorro brought up a while back, I have a question that’s always bugged me:
What excatly
did
David Beckham do to so upset the Racing Post editor that he has been lambasted in the paper every week for the past 343 weeks?
If it was just every week for a few months I’m figuring it could be something serious but not too serious – having an affair with someone’s wife or such like. But this has gone on so long that Beckham’s crime must have been truly heinous.
Is it something he did during his time at Walthamstow dogs? Did Beckham arb his night’s wages one time? Place a filthy each-way double on an away meet at an evening jumps fixture in the on-course shop? Direct a patron to a tote window rather than the on-course shop when someone enquired where they could place a bet? I think we should be told!
Zorro makes some good points but he’s well wide of the mark when it comes to midweek racing. The lifeblood of the sport, loved by many, billions bet on it every year.
Its how a percentage of those billions are channelled back into the sport that’s the problem, not the racing itself. I assume he has no issue with bookmaker free French racing, yet they probably have as much if not more racing than the UK.
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it miffs them greatly that there are copious amounts of product out there that they cannot find a way into.
Indocine
Isn’t that what it’s designed to do, and isn’t the sole reason because bookmakers want it that way?A fine article from Zorro, spot-on in every respect.
CR, the reason why racing in France can hold almost twice as races as in the UK is
because they can afford to.
And the reason why they can afford to is because they have the equivalent of a tote monopoly, so profits from betting can be ploughed back into the sport.
Last month’s Prix D’Amerique meeting in Paris generated (on and off course) a pari-mutuel turnover of 42 million Euros. Arc day probably produces something similar. What is the tote turnover for Grand National day?
it miffs them greatly that there are copious amounts of product out there that they cannot find a way into.
Indocine
Isn’t that what it’s designed to do, and isn’t the sole reason because bookmakers want it that way?reet, with respect I could not disagree more. I’ll be specific, I am talking AW racing here. It is straight, it is formful and it forms a plentiful supply of good betting opportunity on a daily basis. It is not a bookies benefit, that is buckpassing pocket talk.
A fine article from Zorro, spot-on in every respect.
CR, the reason why racing in France can hold almost twice as races as in the UK is because they can afford to.
And the reason why they can afford to is because they have the equivalent of a tote monopoly, so profits from betting can be ploughed back into the sport.
Last month’s Prix D’Amerique meeting in Paris generated (on and off course) a pari-mutuel turnover of 42 million Euros. Arc day probably produces something similar. What is the tote turnover for Grand National day?
Thats my entire point, Venusian. Its why I’ve long argued for a 5 percent tote and scratch cards. There can never be a Tote monoploy but why not put it up to the bookmakers? Its the funding, lack of resolution, non existent leadership and factionalism thats the problem, not the racing.
As ever people have both mixed up. Billions are bet on UK mid week racing every year, probably more than ever if you take the exchanges into account. Zorro’s assertion that mid week racing is "essentially unfathomable for those without inside information" is total bollox. Its his opinion, that’s all. I’m barely ahead since June and its solely down to "unfathomable" racing.
Makes me sick listening to people who want something abolished because they don’t like it. Pathetic that a country the size and with the prosperity of the UK doesn’t think it can manage an average of 4 decently funded meetings a day over the course of a year.
Is this Kabul?
Stop whingeing about bookmakers, take control of the sport, get the funding sorted ffs.
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I have around 23,000 horses all rated from 2009 prepared for the 2010 season.
I am coping very well, its all about putting the effort in.
I have around 23,000 horses all rated from 2009 prepared for the 2010 season.
I am coping very well, its all about putting the effort in.
Are there two Mr Wilsons on this board? There’s this one who says the game is sound and is making a healthy profit and the one who complains regularly that the game’s bent, and has run out of methods to fund his Betfair account. I think we should be told.
Its the funding, lack of resolution, non existent leadership and factionalism thats the problem, not the racing.
As ever people have both mixed up. Billions are bet on UK mid week racing every year, probably more than ever if you take the exchanges into account. Zorro’s assertion that mid week racing is "essentially unfathomable for those without inside information" is total bollox. Its his opinion, that’s all. I’m barely ahead since June and its solely down to "unfathomable" racing.
Makes me sick listening to people who want something abolished because they don’t like it. Pathetic that a country the size and with the prosperity of the UK doesn’t think it can manage an average of 4 decently funded meetings a day over the course of a year.
Could not have put it better myself, CR. Splendid post.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
To play devil’s advocate for a minute, Cav’s post is like those politicians that want to spend extra money and cut taxes, through growth or some such.
Sure an industry where funding has been sorted can put on four well-funded meetings a day. The current reality is that we can’t afford four well-funded meetings a day. To therefore put on four meetings is surely spreading the jam too thinly.
Sure an industry where funding has been sorted can put on four well-funded meetings a day. The current reality is that we can’t afford four well-funded meetings a day. To therefore put on four meetings is surely spreading the jam too thinly.
I’m not having that Horsemans Group white flag approach for one second, Glenn.
There is oceans of money in UK horseacing, absolute billions. The bookmakers hire all the talent to make sure most of it goes their way. In terms of personnel and money, racing gets the leftovers.
Is racing now at the point where it is so bereft of confidence in itself and talent to run the show, it descends into terminal downsizing and a sport with so much going for it accepts unnecessary defeat?
Or does it get its act together, go after direct betting income for itself and ensure a viable 28 race a day sport that such a big and relativity wealthy landmass, with the racing heritage that it has, can easily provide for.
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Is racing now at the point where it is so bereft of confidence in itself and talent to run the show, it descends into terminal downsizing and a sport with so much going for it accepts unnecessary defeat?
No. It’s to the point where downsizing would probably be an almighty victory.
The ‘sport’ had so much going for it when it was recognisable as such, most of it is now little more than an animated lottery, laid on for, and funded by, those who forced greyhound racing into the same backwater our own ‘sport’ is heading for.
Three AW meetings on one day last week, not one prize worth more than 4.25k amongst them, and not one race for any horse rated higher than 85, and you think that’s good for our ‘sport’? One 60k handicap would have probably drawn a better crowd, possibly a better turnover, would certainly have generated more interest from the media, and done a damn sight more for racing’s future than all the above 3 fixtures added together.
Racingis
a sport ffs, though it’s often forgotten by those who can only view the world through £ signs. Peter Savill has gone, thank goodness, and it’s high time those in authority exorcised his ghost.
Give us back our
sport
!
Prize money is just a red herring. Most slashers would still be slashers if the tooth fairy tripled prize money at the bottom end.
You need to take these people straight on. They really believe that racing will be better for THEM if it was slashed to ribbons. They’re are wrong. They will still be the mumping moaning losers they are now, only with more time to indulge.
The ‘sport’ had so much going for it when it was recognisable as such, most of it is now little more than an animated lottery, laid on for, and funded by,…
Thats a punters opinion, not a fact. It is a fact it provides employment, ownership opportunities, and a betting product enjoyed by tens of thousands , the silent MAJORITY who punt on it.
Three AW meetings on one day last week, not one prize worth more than 4.25k amongst them, and not one race for any horse rated higher than 85, and you think that’s good for our ‘sport’? One 60k handicap would have probably drawn a better crowd, possibly a better turnover, would certainly have generated more interest from the media, and done a damn sight more for racing’s future than all the above 3 fixtures added together.
The Levy Board tell us each race earns an average of 10K for the levy. Thats 100K to the bookmakers, at lets say 15% profit on turnover, gives an amount bet per race of over 650 grand. Divide that by 8500 shops, it comes to about 80 quid per race per shop, which seems reasonable. Multiply that 650 grand by 21 races at 3 all weather meetings and your at over 14 million. Add in a conservative 500 grand per race on the exchanges and your not far off 25 million for 3 all weather meetings last week before adding phone and bookmaker internet business. As welcome as a 60k handicap would be this time of year, it wouldn’t be close. Unlike racing, the bookmakers know their customers and turnover is king.
Now take even 5% of all of that interest directly back into racing then you CERTAINLY have a future, much more so than killing off half of it and dividing whats left of the surrender between Gosden and Lloyd-Weber.
Racing is a sport ffs, though it’s often forgotten by those who can only view the world through £ signs.
Agree. Something the pocket talking, defeatist, exterminators whom despite all their racing rhetoric and hyperbole, always come back to in the end, money.
Anyway I’m not too worried about too much unneccessary fixture reduction happening anytime soon, the bookies will win, Group 1 versus Selling Class, as always.
What a pity though that racing accepts the scraps from its own multi billion pound business.
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