the washup from the Racing NSW v corporates decision

Yesterday's decision doesn't seem to have decided much - Betfair will certainly appeal the verdict against them.Bill Saunders argues that their case was hampered by Racing NSW not releasing relevant information until too late.

Betfair was in fact disadvantaged by its lack of knowledge of the rebate arrangement when preparing its statement of claim. Sportsbet, with its case being heard after Betfair, was able to amend its statement of claim accordingly.

Racing NSW will almost certainly piss more money up the wall appealing against the Sportsbet verdict as well.

One thing that will happen is that all NSW operators, including Tabcorp, will now be forced to pay the fees, which they conveniently didn't have to pay under the flawed V'Landys policy. There is no longer a threshold for payment and no mates' deals for the TABs - one policy for everyone, not just a tax on those evil interstate companies. The last point, re interstate companies, may therefore infringe the constitution, giving Betfair further grounds to take them to a higher court, where they usually win.

Some of the various press reports on the verdicts, the only ones claiming to have any sort of victory are the articles heavily influenced by TAB/Racing NSW.

Judgment in Betfair and Sportsbet Matters

State of flux stymies corporate bookmakers

Racing NSW knew it was illegal

Dumb and Dumber

One thing that does come out of these articles is the integrity of former Racing NSW chairman Gary Pemberton:

Perram's judgment noted that Gary Pemberton, the Racing NSW Chairman at the time, did not agree with this decision and voted against it explicitly asking that his dissent be recorded in the minutes. He resigned from the Board two weeks later.

Bravo sir, racing administrators with integrity, particularly in NSW are very few and far between.