curious

Some of those were pretty quick in their day.

Think I prefer 100% of a slow one than 1% of a hopeful champ.

Haha. Do you think I should trade in my recent gavelhouse purchase?

AML issues?

Exactly! And their next highest rated horse is now on the minimum with us.

Not as far as I know but someone like @Freda can probably more reliably confirm or otherwise. I'm certainly aware of situations where say a late nom of an R80 horse in a R75 race, means the weights are compressed significantly and a horse down the handicap is suddenly carrying 54 rather than the expected 56 unleashing a frenzied couple of hours looking for a suitable rider that can make the weight.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know, late nominations for races left open usually close at 9am on withdrawal day. The handicapper then declares the weights and those are then published on the Loveracing site before withdrawals close at 10am. I would think most trainers would monitor those before accepting as the weights may affect jockey options which have to be declared by 1pm.

They are aren't they? You need those to assess the field and decide whether you are going to pay up or not?

It's early days and the only available data I know of is the HRNZ betting data. I note this is limited and does not account for seasonal variation. However, From the seasonal data through 27/06, GBR=35,796,319 Starters=24,139 GBR/starter=$1483 Since the legislation came into effect from 29/6-20/7 GBR=1,653,903 Starters=1140 GBR/starter=$1451 So, early indication is no increase, in fact a slight decline. Hopefully, TABNZ will have a more glowing report at the end of the month based on the overall racing and sports betting data.

I thought your argument was spurious as Newmarket pointed out. It's apples and oranges when humans play contact sports of their own volition. Calling them risky is one thing but hardly cruel. Horses on the other hand have little choice but to participate in jumping races and that's for human entertainment.

I've done it now, though I think they could have asked better questions if they want a fuller picture.

Yes, I got it but haven't responded. The other news doesn't surprise me or if it does, it's that there are NO gains, rather than disappointing gains.

You mean because it's a cruel, dangerous sport?

I was there. Agree 100%. Cracker day.

And I pay zero attention to it myself. Don't punt based on position in running or tempo.

Great day for me there today. Backed a $10 winner and the jockey challenge winner for a tidy profit. Don't really care much about biases, tracks or whatever. There are always overs and winners.

It's on track to having to.

Nope. Couldn't be more wrong. I think my involvement and commentary in the last 25 years is to the contrary. On this, I simply believe that the online monopoly legislation is a bad move for NZ racing. It will simply drive more NZ punters away from betting on it. It's anti-competitive and is and will make betting with NZTAB less and less attractive to punters, particularly the younger generation of sports betting ones who are the ones primarily engaging with the likes of the crypto operators. Back to the headpost, you will note that some of these operators offer 100% matching for deposits up to 5k, for example. I should note that the DIA are doing their best to shut them out. The likes of Betfair, Stake, SpinBet, Gamdom, Roobet, BetVictor, Rizk, and 20Bet appear to have already withdrawn in attempted compliance but I'm not sure how effective that will be. NZTAB don't even offer a crypto deposit option at this stage. Hopefully, I'm wrong and the predicted recovery of $100m GBR will transpire.

https://www.bitcoin.com/gambling/betting/

The DIA themselves recognised this as a risk in considering the options in their RIS. Even with a monopoly there will be people who choose to gamble outside of New Zealand via a VPN, or with less scrupulous offshore operators which continue to offer black market sports and racing betting to New Zealanders.

It appears that is likely what will happen, helped along by this anti-competitive legislation, if stakes are dependent on betting revenue to any great extent. and it won't just be the mudders.

What? Tote betting is not peer to peer. Odds are not fixed and you don’t bet against other specific individuals — you bet into the overall market.

It's definitely not as far as I can see, but their use by NZ punters will no doubt increase given their lower margins and availability of peer-to-peer betting now that those options have been removed for NZ punters, unless the NZTAB offers competitive products. Or that they can find some way to regulate them under the current legislation.

They are already there I think and/or knocking on the door- crypto betting sites. Might already be 2-3% of the market. Perhaps more. Will certainly get a boost from the new legislation here.