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According to John Gosden, the return from betting to racing is eight times lower than any other major racing country, why has this been allowed to happen? whose fault is it? The BHA? The Greedy Bookmakers? The Government?
Are the BHA going to do anything about it or is it going to continue ad infinitum?
Why are people allowed to bet on horse racing if they’re not prepared to pay what it’s worth? it doesn’t happen in other countries.
Horse racing is a great product in Britain and it’s scandalous that the prize money is so poor.Really starting to get pig sick of wealthy trainers expecting the general public to fund the hobby of their wealthy owners.
Owners get a raw deal in this country, personally I would prefer to see any profit made from my betting went to improve the quality of racing that I watch rather than bookmakers pockets.
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Cav
Has it occurred to you that John Gosden might just be wealthy enough not to worry too much about his own income, and may be concerned for the good of UK racing generally?
There are maidens and novice hurdles being run in Ireland today for more prize money than we can muster for any single race at 3 meetings.Hardly all owners are wealthy.
The question is a valid one. Given the amount of betting turnover generated in Uk and Ireland, the amount of money that finds it’s way back into prize money is scandalous. It’s also scandalous the amount of money it costs to go racing in both countries. Just about everywhere else takes a percentage of every dollar/euro/yen bet and plows it back into purses, usually 5-8%. You can get into many famous racecourses worldwide for a fraction of what it costs to go racing in the UK. You could have gone racing at Santa Anita or Keeneland yesterday, a Sunday, for a 1/4 of what it costs to go racing at Leicester on a Monday afternoon.Seems to me like there’s thousands and thousands of people involved in racehorse ownership in the UK who never complain about prizemoney. Maybe their happy with the shared collective experience, days out, stable visits, stable info, the sheer thrill of having a winner, making some of the fee’s back though betting, etc…etc…etc..
Betting exchanges need to be taken into account when calculating percentage returned to total amounts gambled. A comparison with Hong Kong/Japan/USA is not a fair one in this instance.
Why does British Racing receive so little money from betting
If I were a Professor of Gambling Studies, this is the sort of question I might set my students. Top of the Required Reading list would be
The Three Tramps
thread on here.
You have to go back over forty years to find the answer. Back then there was a guy in charge of deciding which route we should go down: an off-course tote monopoly or legalisation of off-course books.
The tote monopoly looked longs odds-on. I mean, what possible argument was there for a bunch of parasitic middlemen? There didn’t appear to be one until our hero, arguably swayed by the offer of having his catastrophic personal gambling debts written off by the crooks, suddenly thought of a couple of arguments:
1) Punters prefer the option of taking a price
2) The tote would retain the monopoly on pool betting – the bookies wouldn’t be able to run a risk free enterprise and would have to earn their corn.Fast forward 45 years………..
If you went into a betting shop today and asked to take a price at Kempton to a meaningful stake you would have probably got the reply ‘SP only sir’ or ‘crumbs at the price, rest at SP’. If you would have said ‘okay’, you’ll have been given an SP determined by the middle price being offered by three tramps standing on upturned beer crates in Sunbury. These tramps run an effective monopsony, where their only real customers are the off-course books. These off-course books look at the proportion of stakes going on each horse at SP in their shops and then dictate what the SPs are via the tramps.
So, we were promised increased competition and the ability to take prices. What we were given was a system whereby private companies run a
de facto
tote at higher margins than the actual tote and keep 90% of the profits.
Some say you couldn’t make it up, but it’s the awful truth.
Owners here get absolutely no value whatsoever for owning horses/shares in horses in Britain.
I believe that the ROA badge scheme is in the process of being overhauled and that the 100% equivalent will be lowered to 50% soon.
Compare that to the US. I have a New York Racing Association owners licence-requirement to get one is to have a 3% share in one horse. Free entry, free parking. Can go into the paddock for any races with the exception of the Belmont Stakes and the 2 races before it and the Travers Stakes and the 2 races before it.
Have access to the backside at Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct-with the sole exception of the Stakes barn at Saratoga.
Pay reduced prices during racing hours for beer, food etc on the backside. $1.75 for a beer etc
I will never own a hair of a racehorse in Britain again. I’d either go with the vast owners bonuses paid in France or the US
If prize money is thought too low then I’d be happy to endorse a 15% deduction from every bloodstock purchase price put through a UK sales to go to the prize money fund.
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What is the turnover of the breeding industry in the UK and Ireland, what cut do the auction houses (or whatever the equine equivalent may be) take from each sale and how much, if anything, is contributed to horseracing?
It seems to me that horseracing, in this country at least, has everything bum-about-face. The entire set up is unlike any other sport in the world and quite why bookmakers, who essentially offer an auxiliary service, should be required to fund it is completely beyond me. No other sport demands a financial contribution from companies facilitating betting, so why does racing believe it has a right to?
Of course, whether the basic structure of the sport is fundamentally sound or not, prize money is always going to suffer when the number of meetings continues to rise. The source of contributions aside, sponsors are unlikely to overcommit themselves to an ever-more diluted product when the internet provides a far more realistic chance of a return on their investment.
"I would prefer to see any profit made from my betting went to improve the quality of racing that I watch.."[/color:avm7lyvs]
Don’t underestimate the quality of the racing you watch Yeats, I’d swap our general dross with your racing anytime and that would include your options to place a bet.
Sure we have free entry to the track (even for days like the recent Group One Canadian International and E.P Taylor Stakes) and with the exception of Stakes races, no entry fee to enter horses into races either. As an owner you have a tough time of it over there and it’s not difficult to see why.
Ask could well have won the Canadian International and picked up $1.2 million for his share, instead he went to France for an alternative Group One to claim how much? That’s quite a difference in prize money for two Group One races.
Without this crap system of ‘Pool’ betting and the assistance of the slots we wouldn’t have the prize money and free entry to offer owners. On Sunday there was a maiden race worth £26,100 to the winner and another later on the card for £20,600, not bad as a starter.
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Agree with both Equitrack and Griff.
It has to be remembered that essentially the vast majority of US racecourses live off problem gamblers ie. those addicted to slot machines.
Would you be happy if racecourses installed 200 FOBT’s in order to increase prize money by 5k a race?
Racing should finance itself and the breeding industry should be the primary target
How much does George Strawbridge one of Gosdens biggest owners, who uses UK racecourses to make money printing breeding machines, put into prizemoney??
The broad answer to you question Cavelino is that owners accounted for 16% of total prize money in GB through entry fees, an amount which does not include race sponsorship monies provided by some of the bigger owners, eg the Sheiks, Cheveley Park, etc. In fact owners account for more prize money than racecourses who provide 15%. The 16% owners’ contribution is equal to the amount of prize money (16%) from sponsorship.
There aren’t thousnds of owners. In 2008 there were 3800 sole owners of racehorses, with a further 5700 individuals owning no more than a share. So the majority of owners – those who only own parts of horses – are presumably not that well off.
So far as funding from breeders is concerned, a considerable amount of prize money is put into racing by the EBF. Basically stallion owners pay a set amount each yesr (based i think on no. of coverings), which goes into a fund to provide extra prize money in EBF nominated races. Also the TBA have just introduced a scheme (applying I think to foals and yearlings) wherby the mare owner can nominate the progeny to be included in the scheme on the payment of a fee when the horse is sold at the sales. For a horse to qualify the buyer pays in an equivalent amount into the fund which will be used to boost prize money in nominated 2y old races.
It would seem to me that breeders are doing more to boost prize money than the BHA whose one and only active contribution is to keep increasing the number of low level BAGS races.
richard
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