Chief Stipe

ENTAIN has only been here for just over two years. They inherited a broken retail model with equally broken and aged equipment. They have been steadily upgrading all the equipment. I don't think you can blame for that. No point promoting something that was broken!! Who is bloody stupid? You "laundered the money" so you will be the first contact!

Desperate? Or making punting more accessible?

I doubt they ever dropped them completely even when data storage was significantly more expensive than it is today. I image they also had AML requirements to retain all the details of an account. They may after a certain time flag them inactive. The data is useful as you pointed out for future promotions. Also the data is useful if someone is playing the system. An account can be open but inactive. I remember always keeping a $1 in my account so I could stream the races!!!

You don't have to go to the TAB to authenticate. To get the sign up bonus you HAVE to authenticate. That might be delayed if you decide to do the hard copy documents process of authentication. Well that was the process I experienced with the first time BETCHA sign up.

Brilliant - they inflate dividends and help fund racing at the same time! By the way you have to authenticate your account to get the bonus cash so I think you might be a bit confused. Depends what you define as "ACTIVE". I know people who are seasonal with their wagering. They don't bet late autumn through to early spring. Be through Spring until about now end of November. Stop -t hen start again late Summer through to mid autumn. That aside I would consider an acount active that bet during the OZ and NZ spring carnivals but not at any other time.

It was mentioned in an article where ENTAIN said there were so many thousand new accounts from people who hadn't bet before.

There was one about two or three weeks ago. Not sure if it was Cup week. From memory it was a bonus type cash promotion but they float around in one form or another all the time. Interesting that the oncourse % to Clubs is 25% higher if through a digital device. Does that mean betting on you phone oncourse or using one of the pods that they put on course now?

@Huey believes there is a relatively small group of owners, trainers and breeders that control every aspect of NZ Thoroughbred Racing. He has at various times labelled them the Old Boys Club, the Mafia and the Cartel amongst other things even though the labels he uses are not that interchangeable. Basically anything wrong in Racing is the Cartel/OBC/Mafia's fault and if you don't have have any success it is because they are stopping you from doing so. Quite frankly it is conspiratorial BS.

Well you don't need to be a Chartered Accountant to read and interpret a set of accounts.

What do you call a "retail promotion"?

Well there is a story in their accounts too.

LOL!!! Are you saying the published financial statements are false?

Well aside from @Freda doing your homework for you @Huey you are both wrong. Neither was earning enough from core activities to maintain core racing assets. Hokitika was doing exactly what the big Clubs have been doing - selling assets to fund operations.

I agree plus it seems they picked up more in November driven by the Melbourne Cup Day.

Seems some Trainers are taking some initiative to turn around the sit, stack and sprint racing pattern at Ellerslie! Chris Wood and Peter McKay had quite strong and colourful words to say about Jockeys sitting back on a slow pace and expecting to sprint home and win!

You compared 20k extra accounts at the time the statement was made which was post the Melbourne Cup and then drew an inference regarding October 24 vs October 25. How do you know they didn't? Would be interested to see your calculations based on the information provided.

$53k in Cash Assets 2024. The $450k in Capital Assets were land, buildings and plant. In 2024 Reefton received a Grant from NZTR which appears to have been spent on "Non-track Asset Maintenance" - if memory serves me correctly that might have been Stewards towers? Very little over the years has been spent on core racing assets and you'd agree that $53k doesn't go very far. How did Hokitika get their kitty? Around 2005 their land assets were revalued and that valuation was considerably higher than the previous valuation. At the same time they disposed of a part of those revalued assets (does Riccarton, Ellerslie and Trentham come to mind?) and put approximately $450k in the kitty. The Westland Racing Club barely made an operational profit from its core business - the majority of the time (before AND after 2005) they ran at a loss. That new "kitty" was being run down. Barely any funds were spent on the maintenance of core racing assets. Basically they were doing what every other Club does - run down the value of their assets to fund operations WITHOUT investing in core infrastructure.

The Melbourne Cup runs in November NOT October. So I'm not sure where you get "the plenty not using accounts in October" from.

Really? If Slot Holder Coolmore has the three best sprinters racing what are the odds are that other Slot holders that own horses will choose one of the two that Coolmore don't? The final starters are the result of a closed auction rather and deals rather than on talent.

Correct me if I'm wrong but does Ellerslie have raceday protocol exemptions: They seem to be able to irrigate closer to raceday than any other Club; They don't use a penetrometer or any other measurement device to derive a track rating; They don't gallop horses on raceday mornings to confirm the rating or a safety test as well. Yet they do at Pukekohe - "because we have horses available there"; The "Soft 5" rating seems standard rather than measured and is achieved by verti-draining late in the week leading up to raceday. What does this do to the stability of the surface? Is this why some horses find it shifty particularly on the bends?; They rely on what the Jockeys say to determine when the rating should be upgraded during the day. If that is the case why don't they gallop horses prior to Race 1? If they don't use a standard rating measurement device how do punters compare the arbitrary "Soft 5" with other NZ tracks?

True but without restrictions is a moot point. Doens't it depend on how much money you have? Although the Asian Pattern Committee has approved its Grp 1 status.

Because it isn't a true statment. It is a self evident truth that dogs are bred to have four legs - you only have to provide evidence of ONE dog that has four legs. You disagree with my statement and you only need to provide one example of where I'm wrong. You could argue Ellerslie is one but then you have shot that one down many many times.

How can I ignore statistics you haven't produced? I may very well be silly by your defnition but you are silly and very negative about everything. I'm surprised there hasn't been a mass escape from the retirement village!!

Is the quality of the field really a Grp 1 though? Some years they have been poor and certainly not representative of the very best sprinters.

How is it flawed apart from the Aussies making their own rules over sweepstake (restricted entry) races?