Sport is made for betting

It may not be Bwin after all, as I predicted a few weeks ago, but the news is out in Australia that several different UK suitors are sniffing around the pioneer of online sports betting, Centrebet. Centrebet rockets on takeover talks SHARE investors piled into Centrebet yesterday as three British gaming companies loomed as potential bidders to take over the listed online wagering and gaming company. ... Analysts said Centrebet -- which is 60 per cent owned by the family of its chief executive, Con Kafataris -- was a good fit for foreign companies wanting to get a stake in the Australian market ahead of expected deregulation. British operators Ladbrokes, William Hill and Sportingbet are the reported overseas suitors for Centrebet and some analysts believe the takeover price could reach $2 a share. The Productivity Commission recently recommended a swag of reforms thought to be favourable for growth in online sportsbooks and casinos in Australia. The Australian market is undergoing major...

Paddy Power haven't taken long to put their stamp on the Australian market. Just a couple of weeks after buying 51% of the Matthew Tripp-owned Sportsbet, they have now launched a bid to takeover Mark Read's IASBet. Read's company have been on the market for months, most recently with a hostile takeover bid rejected from Centrebet. 'Chopper' is getting old and wants to enjoy his later years rather than watching his sons piss all his money up against the wall, which isn't as far-fetched as it seems. The IAS board have approved the deal of 60c per share (last traded at 50c, and was trading at half that price at the start of the year) and unaminously recommend it to all shareholders. Read the IAS announcement to the ASX here The Australian wagering landscape is changing rapidly and Paddy Power have well and truly gotten the jump on any of their UK/Irish counterparts.

Fabulous article here about one of the earliest form gurus, Pack McKenna. In this era of technology with everything available at your fingertips, it's very hard to imagine just what you'd have to do to properly analyse form back in those days. My old mentor Mark Read told stories of learning from his mother, creating his own database of horses using cards, recording trackwork, previous runs etc. And now most punters whinge about having to pay anything to get ratings and form guides.... Thanks to Pull The Pocket for highlighting this great article. It just goes to show, the more hard work you put in, the better your results will be.

Former employer of mine who speaks a lot of sense. A snippet... Hong Kong has the most efficient, fair and easily understood rating and handicapping system in the world. This means an equitable sharing of prize money to all owners not just to an elite class who can dominate by weight of numbers. Prize money is distributed equitably from the lowest class through to the highest to effect a cost of training/prize-money ratio to make ownership both attractive and viable. The population of horses is measured and controlled to satisfy the requirement of optimum field size of fourteen competitors at Sha Tin and twelve at Happy Valley each race. This is a planned racing economy limiting the greed, inefficiency and ignorance that is the blight of Australian racing which in some sectors, most notably New South Wales, is reduced to such mediocrity its future is threatened. The full article at Virtual Formguide

Rumours have been rife in recent months and this article confirms it, IASBet, the Australian corporate bookmaking operation headed by Mark Read, is up for sale. Read must be about 60 now and probably feels the time is right to sit back and enjoy his money rather than stressing about the demands of shareholders. Ever since floating back in 1999 at $2, it's been a pretty lame stock, most recently trading around the 30c mark. He hopes to sell for $1 a share which is pretty ambitious in the current climate. I started my career in the betting industry and still own a small lump of shares. I'd be happy to get any more than the two cases of beer it has been worth for the past five years!