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petty, juvenile arguments drag racing down

Have to give kudos to ATR presenter Sean Boyce for an excellent article picking holes in the petty arguments being put up by Betfair, bookmakers and the racing authorities at the moment over various issues all relating to funding. So much hot air and yet so many conveniently hidden facts are left out of each's argument. A petty fight with handbags and a lot of flimsy evidence.

When Two Tribes Go To War

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Exchanges like to point to the price edge their customers enjoy but also insist that, despite the very different MO which makes that difference possible, they should be subject to tax and levy at the same rate as bookies. They also like to offer the more attractive products from the traditional bookies portfolio to their own customers using their own cash and operating as traditional bookies. Hence exchanges are happy to stand multiples to their customers in exactly the same way as bookies do – more about this later.

Bookies in turn, hate comparisons with exchanges on the one hand but demand that exchanges are treated the same as them on the other. They want to see exchanges paying tax and levy at a rate that will make it easier for traditional bookies to compete, even though the exchange model is quite clearly completely different to the bookmakers model.

Rather like two tribes attempting to converse in a third language that neither is particularly proficient in this results in some pretty funny misunderstandings and misrepresentations.



It's a long piece but very well-written, and a great account of why neither side should be trusted.

And if you're old enough to remember where the title of his article came from, here's the film clip - a classic...

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