Brodie

It is absolutely mind boggling at the moment with the stake money being offered when we know that they are losing money with the amount of wagering occurring. Invercargill has a minimum if 20k and other races are significantly more! Auckland tonight are racing for 50k minimum, Ashburton Sunday $60k minimum! Highly doubt any of these meetings actually cover stake money let alone the other costs of running the meetings! Entain is not currently tracing well at all and yet have to continue to chuck in a cool $250m to racing. Seriously this can not end well with this totally inflated stakes!! Still havent seen a single poster stating that they have confidence in the decision making of HRNZ!

Just Terrible races to bet into, maidens racing race winners?? Short distance racing in NZ Just not attractive to anyone that takes wagering seriously. Too many shorties and not worth the effort surely?

To be fair the intelligent posters are on BOAY! Reality is that the ones that genuinely care about harness racing are mostly on BOAY, and tell it the way it actually is! Some of us were banned from the other site due to telling the truth about things without the rah rah bs!

you sere lucky you got an email from them lol They are pretty gutless are the Bookies but it is to the detriment of racing.

Never had a rebate as it is only on tote betting if I understand correctly. I would prefer that as the TAB has a monopoly on gambling on racing that they actually take the wagering that punters want. They put up the odds and yet are not prepared to allow some punters to bet reasonable amounts. Not sure how much the Entain owned Ozzie Bookies restrict punters to over there, but are the Ozzie’s restricted as much as we are here in NZ?

I believe they open too many too short and that does not encourage wagering! Then when you want to wager, they dont let you on for much and then slash the odds too much to encourage others! They talk about wanting to increase turnover, but they dont!!!

Does anyone know where the Fixed odds are being set? Is it Kiwi Bookies or Ozzie Bookies? The TAB needs to come out and publicly explain what their betting policy is, as it is going to drive punters and wagering away!

Hearing from other punters now that 5hey are not getting on the bets that they are wanting. The TAB Bookies put up the odds but are not prepared to allow punters on for very much, unless you are a known losing punter or Out The Gate presenters, TAB Entain need to come out and explain why they are not prepared to take wagering at reasonable levels?

Geez, it is just so frustrating for us to see just how poorly managed harness racing is at the moment! If things arent working he will step in and change things? Seriously, does he really not realise the consequences of poor financial decisions? At the end of the day the free money is going to stop and then what? Read the article on the thoroughbred site of BOAY and anyone with half a brain will be able to see what is going on with Entain, and it is not going to be pretty for harness racing in two years time! Its ok though we can afford to pay out $60k for a 4 horse race that is going to generate nothing. Crazy stuff, but its all good, Brad Steele says things are positive for harness 😂

They need to be squirrelling away money as they will need to reduce stakes significantly when the funding is slashed. just read the article on Entain on the galloping blog site, and if goi read that and still believe that Entain are this White Knight, then you have a very low IQ! McAnulty should never have sold out to Entain, as I have been saying since the start, as they have no interest whatsoever of helping out racing! I believe that if they could sell now and cut their losses, they would do so! HRNZ CEO Brad Steele hopefully has read this article and taken it all in, and then he should come out and apologise!

Think we will find that in a couple of years $8k for s harness race will be s good stake! the owners and trainers are needing go make hay while they are getting the Entain cash splash. There would be very few races being run at the moment that are profitable from wagering and this is accentuated by the stifling of wagering by the Bookies!

Agree re unevenness of the fields and where maidens race race winners. Probably racing over the short distance might help a wee bit, but many are going to be out classed. The first race for 3 year old fillies with 4 lining up is just ridiculous, but then again this series wont be run again. Someone will wake up to the fact that the funds are going to come to an end and hopefully get serious about the coffers?

You are right, they continue to make very poor decisions and are not in the best interests of racing in NZ! As I mentioned many times Entain is not interested too much in racing but that doesnt give HRNZ any excuse for the poor business decisions that have been made! Is there anyone that actually has confidence in HRNZ in their decision making and if so why? We can take it that no one has, if we get no support for them!

Methven on Thursday, good to see that they havent gone for a full program of the ridiculous mile racing that they have been having in recent years! Still some over the sprint but they appear to have shown some common sense . Hope they have a great turnover on Thursday as they are a good hardworking club and deserve it, but betting will be stifled by the Bookies as per usual!

I am not prepared to call them dumb as at this stage! would prefer to say that they really have not got a successful business plan in action! They are just trying to get through the 5 year guaranteed money on racing and then they will pull out the support for racing, there is no doubt about that, despite what they are going to say. Why do you think that Dean Shannon got given the DCM? Not sure where the Fixed Odds are being set by at the moment, is it NZ or Australia? The Bookies clearly have been told to follow the policy of only allowing losing punters to offload significant amounts. Shutdown or don’t make it worthwhile for the better punters to wager on racing with us! Entain don’t care much for racing it is not why they bought into the NZ TAB and this shows with so many of the decisions they have made. Why did they sack two of the other senior Entain executives as well as Dean Shannon hmmmm? HRNZ keeping their heads in the sand and keeping quiet and worrying more about their own positions. Anyone is more than welcome to disagree with Brodie but doubt anyone can ?

Gamma, so $1k in the 1980’s is not the same as $1k in 2025, The TAB will not let some punters back on at reduced odds at all, full stop! You say that some get preferential treatment for big bets? I want to put big bets on, but they wont allow that to occur, and yet OTG are allowed anything!!! Wouldn't think I have lived under any rock, just believe that treating people differently by the NZ TAB and rubbing it in our faces is rather very poor form! It needs to be exposed the way they operate, as I dont know any other business that is allowed to operate in this manner in NZ!

They allow them on for what they want , no restrictions whatsoever and get gifted thousands of dollars! They are winning on the greyhounds which are not the hardest to win off due to the amounts they are allowed to wager! It is total preferential treatment being given to OTG, we can all see that, whereas others get the opposite treatment! Personally can not see how the CEO of HRNZ has not had this out with the TAB as it js costing harness income?

We continually see on Trackside, these Big Bet Alerts around $1K! Is $1,000 really a big bet nowadays? These $1k bets are probably all that the Bookies are prepared to accept, so they have very little appetite for punters who are wanting to take the Bookies on! Personally do no consider $1k as being noteworthy to be advising the public that it is a big bet! If they do consider it to be a big bet then why don’t they let all punters on for $1k bet and their turnover will be increased? The TAB Bookies are stifling the turnover massively on all races without doubt? Someone has a smallish wager and the Bookies then immediately slash’s the fixed odds once or twice so that they are too short for other punters to see it as worth betting on! The odds are always in the Bookies favour but they just are far to conservative and this is what stifles the turnover and harness industry.

that is hard to understand? Palmy need Michael House taking horses up there or they will not be holding meetings!

There is no transparency whatsoever and very little out of HRNZ. They concentrate on yield when it needs to-be turnover. A lower yield on a bigger turnover is a far better option! You restrict turnover and it has bad side effects.

Not sure how many punters are restricted by the TAB in NZ? However they would be far better off allowing the punters on for reasonable amounts than turning away business and therefore restricting the turnover! How do they know that the restricted punters currently are not going to be losing punters in the future? At least let everyone on to be able to win a reasonable amount in this day and age as a few hundred dollars is pathetic, when OTG are allowed to win tens of thousands!

Think of how much extra turnover they would have if they let the punters on?

Personally dont think that whingeing is when someone is prepared to stand up to what they know is morally and ethically wrong! Anyone that has any sense of fairness can see that Brodie is right in his thinking snd if it affected them, then they would hold the same opinion. People need to express their opinions and whether they are right or wrong they need to be heard. The thing is we never hear from the TAB as to why they think they should be allowed to treat punters in NZ differently! What other businesses do we know of that are allowed to treat their customers unfairly and get away with it?

The sole reason that I continue to go on about restrictions etc. is the total victimisation of some punters and the favouritism towards others! The TAB advertises that punters should bet responsibly! Now do they actually mean this or is it just to try and show that they do care? Has anyone heard of the TAB restricting or stopping losing punters from wagering??? Personally I never have, but what the TAB actually does do is restrict punters that do bet responsibly and are winning punters!! So we can see the Hypocrisy in a big way coming from them! They have been giving the Out The Gate extra bonus cash, bonus bets and increased fixed odds since it started whereas some punters continue to be restricted to buggerall! Winning punters are restricted as soon as they start winning consistently and yet OTG have been winning recently and yet they get rewarded with “Free money”! While the TAB continues to operate morally and ethically wrongly, surely it is anyones right to point this out? The answer is to treat all punters fairly and then there will be no issues. If they havent got the fortitude to take the punters on when they put up fixed odds then say so and put restrictions on every punter in NZ. Why dont they come out and advertise the fact that they only want to take wagering from punters that are going to lose? Brodie just telling it the way most people would think is fair and reasonable.

Thank you Spatchcock. Appreciate that. Tis my right to point out the error of their ways! Treat all punters equally and I will not need to point it out. When some punters are restricted to pathetically low amounts and the TAB employees are treated with total favouritism and are allowed to wager and win unlimited amounts, it needs to be discussed. Why is it right to be treating punters differently? Spatchcock do you really believe that they are operating ethically, and would other businesses get away with it?