westbrew

It is clear Peters has said there is no way back for Greyhounds. GRNZ have substantial reserves, they need to demand that the NZ TAB continue to fund them via revenue made from betting on Aussie Greyhounds, and with these two sources of income begin a program to assist young trainers to relocate to Aussie, and for older trainers to transition to other employment, as well as making money available for the present owners to continue to care for their dogs, a monthly payment per dog is easily achievable. Also a welfare program for all license holders to deal with any mental heath issues that this upheaval will cause. When the Railways, and MOW where basically shut down in mid 80s thousands lost their jobs with minimal assistance, at least GRNZ has the resources to be able to close their sport with dignity and allow the license holders and dogs to walk away with their heads held high.

Chief, the NZTAB bought a system and continued to pay licensing fees on that system called open bet off paddy power, who are owned by Flutter, Flutter own sportsbet in Australia who run the same open bet system. Entain did not own the software, so this was not the way out for the TAB. I agree Allen was an incompetent when it come to running a wagering business and the purchase of the flutter betting system together with a number of stupid decisions made by Bayliss before Allen arrived led to putting the TAB in a very poor situation, the Covid shutdown then made the TAB insolvent. Unlike you i have no faith in the fools who negotiated the Entain deal even having any idea about betting systems. As for Austrac, you may be rite nothing to see here just a few bad apples pushing their money thru Entain Australia, I'm guess the NZ equivalent will give Entain NZ the once over and provide a report to the NZ Government.........as i said the DIA could not organise a piss up in a brewery, or maybe they are to busy writing up 15 online casino licenses so they do not have time to check if a global entity having problems in Australia is doing the same here.

The breeders have an Industry. Racing is a community based sport, and NZTR are taking that community based sport away from the community as it appears to be putting the Interest's of the Breeding Industry ahead of the sport of racing and its inherent connection to the community.

Exactly, but Rugby and League both get assistance from the local councils in the form of the ongoing playing field infrastructure, and more importantly both the NZRFU and NZRL, are trying to grow the community engagement and participation in their sports across NZ. Racing is telling half the country that you don't fit into our plans and we are going to shut your course, and take the money, but watch us on TV and bet on our sport really??? On what planet does Messara, Peters and the board of NZTR think that is a viable long term growth strategy for racing in NZ.

First I would have a Board, as i owned the Industry i would be chairman, then the members would be.. A Lawyer, and Accountant, a respected ex Trainer, a respected ex Jockey, a respected ex steward, and a respected ex track official and last a civil engineer. Eight including me, my expertise is gambling/wagering so i don't need someone on that front, then you use the experience you have on the board to appoint a CEO. The key then is having a set of KPIs for that CEO that the Board set which reflect the outcomes we wish to achieve. As far as i can see with the present set up in the so called Racing Industry either the CEOs, of bodies such as NZTR and RIB are setting their own KPIs or their respective boards do not have in depth knowledge of the industry and/or outcomes that are required so either way bullshit KPIs are being set which are producing bad outcomes.

Entain/TAB are a disgrace. The idiots in Australia running Entain for starters have no idea how to run a tote as they never had one, so all they have done since they arrived is tried every trick they had in Australia to destroy the tote, as TAB Corp runs the tote in Aussie. They were not bright enough to realise when they took over NZ TAB they were running the tote. So they keep pissing away revenue introducing deals that are just a tactic in Aussie to shift betting from tote to fixed odds. Entain in Aussie have major issues with Austrac so how exactly were they growing their aussie business? they must love it in NZ no oversight except DIA who could not organise a piss up in a brewery, so simple answer to grow the NZ business restrict the hell out of any punter that even looks like they know how to make a buck, and make money like they do in Aussie, letting it flow into their fixed odds book which they keep secret. And the funniest thing of all is the silly old TAB let Entain totally decommission the TAB betting platform and run the business from Entains platform in Aussie, so in effect they have sold the business not outsourced it, so racing got 200 million for the TAB. If the TAB was to end the outsource deal they no longer have a system to run a betting platform on so effectively they have no business. They still own the tote which Entain is trying as hard as possible to destroy, not to mention they have allowed Entain to export all of the TABs customers data to Entain Aussie so when Entain UK get a casino license they can use the data to move the younger TAB customers over to casino gambling. And even funnier, Entain Based In Brisbane, and suddenly CEO of HRNZ from Brisbane, CEO of RIB from Brisbane, and CEO of TRNZ an Aussie..............There you go had my rant for the day.

The interesting thing to me when you start to look at the large scale infrastructure problems that racing has is the term Industry. Is it really an Industry. Is it not a collection of sporting clubs that were designed to provide community entertainment in the form of horse racing......moving on 50 plus years its now an Industry but the problem is unlike examples like the wine industry or the kiwi fruit industry etc it is not self funding anymore and the money required to up keep its assets to the required standard in this modern age ( without a lot of unpaid community input which historically was available) is substantial. This is a classic case of wanting your cake and wanting to eat it as well, you either have stakes at the current artificiality inflated level and a racing bureaucracy growing at an expediential rate ie NZTR/RIB or you have sound well run infrastructure. The present industry leaders have decided to have the stakes and bureaucracy, while telling everyone they have a funded plan for the infrastructure problem. Simple answer is they are bullshitting, and NZ has now taken the art of Bullshitters, Bullshitting to Bullshitters to a new Level.

Are the RIB equipped to effectively censure clubs around the presentation of tracks??? In the old days pre RIU 2010, the chief steward of TB racing would have been a senior member of the NZTR management team, in all likely hood someone that the NZTR board would have deferred to in all matters racing, and thus the chief steward would have been able to police such things with a firm hand. Now the chief steward is a much less important position, he does not work for NZTR anymore and in all likely hood has very little ability to even influence anything outside of jockey behavior on race day. Maybe NZTR should look at getting their stewards back in house and thus bringing much needed expertise back within the tent. With Greyhound racing coming to an end it would make total sense as well as saving millions in administration costs to devolve the stewards back to the two remaining codes.

I think that this seems to be what we use to call, a ball blowing exercise, something that many of my friends in the rural community find distasteful, and many in the business world cant get enough of.

Yes it looks awful, but the reality is that many clubs no longer have the financial resources to upkeep large assets such as tracks and the supporting public infrastructure, However the industry has been given a five year golden ticket and is determined to piss it away in funding stakes to an unsustainable level (in the medium to long term) I guess it will end where it always ends with this industry, heading off to the Government with its hand out, and expecting another free lunch. The most disappointing aspect of the industry is that it seems to have no financial constraints on the growing administrational structures, my god if you add up the cost of NZTR,HRNZ,GRNZ and RIB i reckon you are looking at 40 to 50 million plus.

Facial recognition really???? What a crock, they have a $1000 limit where you have to provide ID for any money coming in or going out and the DIA rules about pokie betting and what is required in management of the the machines more than cover off on all of the problem gambling aspects within the retail TAB environment. Just read the financial information (even though they are doing there best to cover up the real story) the reality is the numbers that Entain and TAB talk about don't stack up in any way shape or form, the industry is sitting at the top of a fiscal cliff, and TAB 4 Ever in his positive vain is dead rite, enjoy it now. That's because there is a world of pain coming down the road.

Unfortunately for Greyhounds its the profit distribution of the turnover, in simple terms the TAB makes profit from domestic racing, offshore racing, sports and pokies, at the end of the year profit was paid out at about give or take 19% to Greys, 26% harness 55% TB, the only turnover and profit that will be lost will be domestic Greyhounds, and the sad reality is that the 20% of profit greyhounds was getting from sports, pokies, plus the revenue from offshore greyhounds adds up to a lot more than the profit being made on domestic greyhounds, thus the other two codes will be much better off to the tune of millions of dollars, plus take the RIB for example according to TAB accounts 14m last year you would think there is a saving of 3 or 4 million just there alone once Greyhounds are gone. Now after seeing the TAB accounts for last year it is very clear that the 50/50 split at the end of the 5 years is a fiscal cliff, already with have the backtrack on pokies to keep that income stream, and now looking at the numbers the geo block has gone from being cream on the cake, to actually needed to be able to deliver any chance of the two remaining codes profit distribution they are getting this year being able to be met in 3 years time, Thus the minister in all likely hood has signed off on the demise of Greyhounds to minimize the fiscal cliff for Harness and TB.

One of the major problems Harness racing has is the TAB is comprised of two sorts of punters those who have a specific interest ie sports or Greyhounds or harness etc, and those who are casual punters that are just looking to have a recreational bet or two. The example in the start of this tread while being easily understood by harness followers it puts the recreational punter off. Now I don't know the exact numbers but the average harness punter is probably 55+ and the average recreational punter 35+ guess which one is going to die out first????

If you do a back of the envelop sums from the last time the TAB provided any reasonable data in their financial accounts Prob 19/20 racing year, as long as Entain NZ continue to take Greyhound racing from Aust, the other two codes will be financially better off when Greyhound racing in NZ is closed down, Im sure they have both done the sums, plus now it is obvious that once the 50/50 split comes there is a fiscal whole to be filled, the other two codes are basically saying its every man for himself, and guess what the 50/50 split looks much better cut 2 ways instead of three.

I would be very surprised if Entain (UK) did not gain one of the 15 Licenses when they are handed out in Feb of 2026. Get ready to have your email invaded with ads for the Entain casino, as the TAB or should i say Entain NZ privacy policy which everyone who has a TAB account has signed up to allows Entain NZ to share your data with Entain Aust who than can share it with the rest of the Entain group. Also check out the TAB NZ financial accounts for 23/24 racing year which are now on TAB website www.tabnz.org very interesting reading income of 160m from the partnership hmmmm in 3 years 50% of that is only 80m, guess there is alot of growth to come in racing and sports wagering in next 3 years???????

My Understanding was that geo blocking was for wagering which is sport and racing, gambling which is effectively casino games would not fall under the geo blocking, hence the government is looking to issue 15 licenses of which most will be taken up by offshore operators. The key here is understanding that with 15 operators able to legally advertise and offer gambling options to the NZ population over time they will aim to change consumer behavior ( that means move gamblers from racing and sport, to pokies, blackjack, poker etc). It appears the racing industry is turning a blind eye to this, I for one think this is a game changer and will over time see a significant drop in gambling related income available for distribution to the racing industry. A further issue which i believe will rear its head further down the line, is that the present community distribution scheme from domestic pokie income will also be impacted. And if i was running Basketball or Tennis or Rugby etc i would be going to the government and saying, why are the profits from gambling on my sport being handed over to the racing industry??? hmmmmmm

Long time reader, first time poster here. It appears to me the real issue as always is Money in this case gambling revenue. The TAB/Entain is keeping quiet as they want the Geo Block to increase margins and hence profit As Winston has given all of the gaming duty back to the industry, The Govt now finds itself in a position of potential online casino gambling, providing a revenue stream much greater than racing, with 15 online casino licenses to be handed out, and the Govt to get the gaming duty plus GST from these (they only get GST from TAB/Entain)by closing Greyhounds down, at the same time as turbo charging online casinos and there legitimacy via a license regime not to mention allowing casinos to advertise, the Govt stands to win from a change of gambling habits mainly in the younger set from Race betting to casino gambling. Thus the Greyhounds are the first casualty, the other codes will be in a world of pain once the Winston years are over, as they will find it very hard to compete for the gambling dollar against 15 online casinos which will be providing the Govt of the day with much more revenue than Racing.