The NZ Tab Aus Tabs and bookmakers are for recreational punters
Pro or big punters bet on Betfair or the Hong Kong tote
An example say the quinella pool in NZ had 6k I came along and boxed 3 horses in a quinella 10,000 times I would boost that quinella pool to 36,000 the tab then take out 20% that means 28,800 can be paid back to the punters so I would lose 1,200 before the race is even run
Its not that the big NZ punters don’t want to support their local product the fact is they can’t
Take on the other hand the Hong Kong Tote holds 5 million in their quinella pool so if I box my 3 horses 10,000 times on the Hong Kong tote and the quinella pays $15 I can collect 150,000 and there’s still 4 million odd to pay out to the other successful punters
The only way NZ and Aus can get anywhere near this and to attract big punters to bet with the Tab is to merge all Aussie Tabs and the NZ Tab and have the one Australasian Tab then maybe and it’s a big maybe the pools might be big enough to attract some of the punters back