Gala Coral is 'worthless' according to equity firm investor

That can't be good to hear when you've pumped £5 billion into a business.

"Gala Coral was formed by a merger between Gala and Coral Eurobet in 2005, but its component parts have been through a series of private equity owners in the past decade. The company has £4.4 billion of debt, including shareholder loans of £1.6 billion, but is operating within its banking covenants."

"Gala Coral, which employs 19,000 people and operates 1,566 Coral betting shops, 165 bingo halls and 31 casinos, has struggled since the double whammy in 2007 of the smoking ban and the scrapping of lucrative high-payout gaming machines."

Read the Times article here.

The betting shop real estate is probably the most valuable thing in the portfolio so it's not as if the bookie itself will go bust. If push came to shove, someone would buy it. But when a corporation is over four billion pounds in debt, things can go pear-shaped very quickly...

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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

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...

Betdaq.... sold...... FOR HOW MUCH???

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