Skip to main content

How much is the UK tote really worth?

This week Betfair has purchased a US racing network and tote pool company for just £35m. The Tasmanian TAB, a small but innovative tote monopoly, is up for sale with estimates being between AU$30 and $80 million (£13-35m).

Let's look at the UK tote. It's not a monopoly. Day-to-day race pools (win, place, exacta, trifecta) are pitiful, the only popular products are the Placepot and Scoop6.

The Tote has a lot of shops, some of which are rather dated or closing down. It has a bookmaking arm, but who doesn't these days, and how many of these customers are genuinely loyal without accts elsewhere?

The Tote now links in with most UK bookies, which means big pools but gives away most of their margin as well. The technology is outdated and frequently breaks down. A tote should be able to show approximate dividends the instant the horses cross the line. A recent bet of mine at Ascot, a winning trifecta, took 20 minutes to display a dividend. How do they calculate the divs - with pen and paper and an abacus?? The pools are pathetic and it still takes ages!!

Aussie totes hold millions and can return dividends within seconds. The tote here is so far behind it is ridiculous.

£300 million you reckon? Tell him he's dreaming! You'd be lucky to get £20 million... and even then I'd expect shareholders of the buying firm to be up in arms...

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...