Victor Chandler on the front of the Racing Post today saying layers should pay levy, I have to give it to him, its a crackin' joke! I certainly wouldnt have been able to keep a straight face saying it. If Mr Chandler would be so kind as to check the Betfair markets he would see that nigh on every "lesser interest race" (by that I mean the usual meeting, not your Goodwoods etc) has between €30,000 and €60,000 matched up to around 20 minutes to the off, a 25 runner handicap in Leopardstown last week had €1,700 matched around 15 minutes before the off I kid you not, then we get a whole heap of traders coming into the market and the total matched shoots to €300,000+, yes there will always be cases of big backers and big layers, but the market is basically made up of traders, however Mr Chandler wants, and I quote, "Ten per cent of all gross profits from every lay bet on exchanges." HAHA! Its a cracker innit, I laugh every time.
I suppose the really sad part is that, over here in Ireland, the HRI and Government actually plan on bringing in some sort of tax on all online betting. So can you picture if every bet you placed was taxed? It'd be impossible to gamble at all. The part that annoys me is that the HRI seem to think that they have a right to tax gambling on sports other than horse racing to pay their levy. Bollocks IMO. To tax a cricket/football/GAA bet to pay for horse racing - I cant even describe another situation like it - it'd be like Man City buying a player to play for Liverpool? Surely, if all forms of gambling are taxed, then the revenue from gambling on GAA should go to the GAA, and cricket should go to Cricket Ireland, etc etc. I dont know what planet HRI are living on but I wish they'd come join us on Earth 2010 soon.
The worst thing about it all really is theyre all fighting over money, trying to make more money, trying to pay less money. Its all just purely about money. No one seems to give a damn about the horses or the actual sport. The BBC quote that "In 2009, the yield from the Horse racing Betting Levy shrank by more than 20%, from £115.3m to £91.6m. And reports predict that the 2010 levy has dropped even further, to £76.5m." There was, what seemed a fairly decent bloke, on BBC radio the other morning saying it could drop further to only 50M the year after. If every side keeps on pulling and pulling for money, as I said before there'll soon be none left, if they stopped moaning and bitching like old women we might actually solve the problem. But I think the main problem is that we actually dont know what the main problem is, everyone has opinions, opinions always differ, they row, so we get nowhere basically. The obvious seems to cut race meetings and by default save money in the sense of prize money, but they seem to want more low grade meetings with less and less prize money - which in turn just drives people away because theres no real excitement seeing racing like that. So its like a never ending cycle that just has the sport going down and down each year.
Anyway we all have to paddle our own boat bugger the HRI and BHA. They may not have the best of racing in Galway but my god do they know how to throw a party. Although most (nearly all) of my profit comes from Rip hitting 1.12 in running on Wednesday, I didnt lay that low but had an awe-green lay in the system thinking if he went for home first he'd trade odds on. 1.12 seems very low given that he never really had Canford looking cooked, but its understandable because these days with override odds the on course boys just hit a button and it takes whatever is there to 1.01, so its only natural that horses will now trade a bit shorter. Its easy to look at the graph and say "jaysus what was your man thinking" but during the race you only have not even half a second to react, so AFTER the race when you know the result the odds matched take on a whole different complexion because you know the result obviously, its easy to call low odds backers mugs, but your man who matched 1.01 on a loser is probably odds on to have been the first to match the price all the way to 1.01 on the winner too. You can have an opinion on Betfair and it may be good, but it'll only get you so far in life, have a time advantage though, and you are in absolute clover.
No boxing tonight either which is a shame because I look forward to Friday Fight Night, but anyway, cant wait for these Quarter Finals in Croker the weekend. C'mon Kildare..!
Horse Racing: €161.86 Total P&L: €161.86
By the way I've found a video, you know the serious ones that only I find the funny side of. Its a news bulletin on rape and I'm sorry to take the piss if youre a serious person but fast forward to 1 minute in and look at the brothers interview, its priceless, hes a bit of a cross between Ronaldinho and Graham Norton, "Hes climbin' in yo windows, hes snatchin' yo people up, tryin' to rape 'em. So y'all need to hide yo kids, hide yo wife, an hide yo husband cos they rapin' everybody out here." "Fo real, homeboy." This is the greatest man of all time.
Betfair Chase Day 2024 (Haydock)
3 hours ago
Another article thought you might interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b3b07a16-9684-11df-9caa-00144feab49a.html
Horse racing diversifies to weather a rough rid
These are “bittersweet” times for horseracing, says Simon Bazalgette, chief executive of the Jockey Club. Sweet, because while other sports suffer in this economic climate, attendances are rising as many business-minded racecourses diversify and use alternative entertainment to pull in new customers.
Even prestigious Ascot is doing it. This weekend’s race card features the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes plus fairground rides. Boy George is in concert in August, while in September a real ale beer festival may attract those visitors not otherwise drawn to one of the biggest races of the year, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
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The first six months of the year saw a rise of 3.5 per cent in average daily attendances. Total attendances were up 2 per cent to 2.8m.
Goodwood, which has enjoyed a 20 per cent uplift in corporate hospitality, is expecting next week’s five-day festival to take attendances from last year’s 91,000 to close to 100,000.
But joy in this industry is in short supply. Earlier this month, the British Horseracing Authority announced it was delaying publication of next season’s fixtures because of funding problems, creating uncertainty among the sport’s 20,000 full-time workers and the 80,000 employed in related industries.
The scale of the problem this week prompted the well-heeled Jockey Club – operator of Ascot, Epsom, Cheltenham, Aintree and 10 other racecourses – to offer some respite. It raised the amount it contributes to prize money – the lifeblood of stable staff, jockeys, trainers and owners – by 10 per cent.
What makes the industry so worried is the marked drop in the annual horseracing betting levy, a statutory duty on bookmakers to give up a percentage of their profits to keep racing in business. According to the BHA, the size of the levy has dropped a third in two years to £77m. The reason, they say, is that bookmakers are exploiting loopholes, most notably by moving their online businesses offshore.
Racing and the bookies, the most irritable of partners, are shaping up for a now-familiar bruising battle over next year’s levy. The BHA has set out its case for a levy of £130-£150m, but bookmakers are prepared to offer no more than £60m.
Nic Coward, BHA chief executive, describes the bookmakers’ stance as “breathtaking”.
Bookmakers point out that the decline in the levy reflects the public’s reduced interest in making bets on the sport. Moreover, racecourses were enjoying an increase in media rights revenues. “This has given them the scope to make the gesture that the Jockey Club has made,” says Patrick Nixon, chief executive of the Association of British Bookmakers.
Mr Bazalgette is among many in the industry who believes the levy, conceived in the 1960s, is no longer fit for purpose. “We should go for a much more commercial mechanism,” he says.