Skip to main content

TABCorp to kick the small fish out of the pools?

What's the reasoning behind this I wonder?

RWWA Media Release

Racing and Wagering Western Australia (RWWA) has today been advised of Tabcorp's intention to end the pooling agreement and the fixed odds agreement with RWWA by mid 2009.

It is understood all participants in Tabcorp's pooling and fixed odds arrangements have received similar notification.

RWWA and Tabcorp have operated a successful pooling agreement since 1991 and RWWA has been an integral member of the national fixed odds arrangement since 2000.

RWWA chief executive Richard Burt said Tabcorp's decision to end both agreements was a major surprise.

"The decision is completely inconsistent with the business relationship between both parties," Mr Burt said.

"RWWA has been working closely with Tabcorp in recent months on a number of key projects to improve and expand our product offering.

"RWWA will immediately move to assess its options, one of which might be to renegotiate new agreements.

"The timing of Tabcorp's decision is significant, given the recent pressures that the racing industry has had to face with Equine Influenza and product fees."

==============

Very interesting. A few guesses here:

1 - NSW and Victoria are finally going to link up and the smaller states will be too much work for an already-exhausted IT system.

2 - TABCorp want to re-negotiate the deals since the gentleman's agreement between states re racing revenue crossing borders is now gone

3 - TABCorp now want to compete in every state and can make more money by taking clients off the local totes.

All that will happen now is they will all move across to UniTAB (who have now officially purchased Centreracing, the worst-kept secret of the betting industry), which will hopefully mean only two TABs left as Victoria & NSW finally combine. Eventually they'll get around to having one national tote and stop their bickering...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

Spot-fixing - you will never, ever be able to stop it

According to this report , IPL tournaments so far have been rife with spot-fixing - that is fixing minor elements of the game - runs in a single over, number of wides bowled etc. The curious part of that article is that the Income Tax department are supposed to have found these crimes. What idiot would be stupid enough to put down 'big wad of cash handed to me by bookie' as a source of income? Backhanders for sportsmen, particularly in a celebrity- and cricket-obsessed culture like India are not rare. They could come from anything like turning up to open someone's new business (not a sponsor, but a 'friend of a friend' arrangement), to being a guest at some devoted fan's dinner party etc. The opportunities are always there, and there will always be people trying to become friends with players and their entourage - that is human nature. This form of match-fixing (and it's not really fixing a match, just a minor element of it) is very hard to prove, but also,

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...