mardigras

I suggested another time that suited me. They said no. Get your facts right.

The numbers are a waste of money. Everything costs. NZ is struggling with revenue and more numbers wouldn't change that. Cost Vs benefit. Small cost, zero benefit.

Love it. You and your brother both a fan of Ted's tips. Get on. Which of his $2 tips do you like best?

Incredible. I have the ideas and you want me to give up my time to meet them. Yet, they were not prepared to give up their time to meet me. I had nothing to lose by not meeting them. Still don't. Lucky for you, you've now got what you seem to want. NZ gallops with zero interest. Lucky you. You should be well stoked because you were hoodwinked by their spiel on what commingling would do for the industry. Tell me how that's gone. Hahahahaha

Certainly given your desire to denigrate what others put up on a different site, you aren't the bundle of joy you want to make out. You're a sad, jealous individual that can only put winners up after they've won and feel the need to cherry pick selections from elsewhere to fulfil your modus operandi. That's about the level of your credibility. None. Enjoy telling everyone what you've backed after the race. I hope it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside sharing that.

I disagree in the main. The TAB may have been going to take a hit from competition. But commingling was designed to increase tote betting. Suddenly upon introduction it reduced it. And coincidentally those others things supposedly caused it?? Betfair was operating well before 2007. And tote betting was increasing at that stage. Why did tote betting reduction coincide with the introduction of commingling and not the introduction of betfair/sports betting/additional corporates? Did the NZ punter wait until commingling arrived to decide to use those alternative options? It's totally logical that tote betting on NZ racing would reduce with commingling. As Aquaman stated, why would I bet on NZ tote when I had the choice to bet on better racing at a lower cost to the punter? And without needing an off-shore account in a different currency. Which most NZ punters simply wouldn't bother with, especially back in 2007.

True. However the significant decreases in tote betting on NZ races started when commingling was introduced. At the time, sports betting was tiny. The decreases have merely continued.

FTF, I'm sure ATA was on Mannie's Power. That's probably one he will put up after the races like you say. Although I hear it was put up elsewhere before the races, such is the embarrassment.

The idea of commingling is OK. The primary issue with the TABCORP agreement is the requirement to flood NZ racing with off-shore racing. I would have preferred no commingling and NZ TAB to set take-out rates below their competitors. But if they had simply agreed to commingling - but not to all the extra races (and levelled off the take-out rates to the same), the impact would not have been as severe. We've lost the focus on our own racing. What jurisdiction other than us, promotes 10 times as much racing elsewhere - and heavily promotes it. Losing the focus and interest on our own racing, makes the industry as a whole in NZ, of less value to the nation. For every $1 of NZ racing tote turnover that shifts to an off-shore race, the net revenue is impacted on average by between 4 and 8 cents. That's made up of the variance in the take-out rate plus the race field fees we pay on that event. if you don't add revenue generating betting to make up for that, you lose approx. $8m in net revenue when $100m goes from NZ tote to an Oz race. That's $8m revenue (not turnover), you have to have attracted from somewhere just to break even with the strategy. Commingling has shifted a lot more than $100m from NZ tote betting elsewhere.

The issue is that most people here involved in strategies around betting revenue, can't see past what the potential impact is to one race or one meeting, here or there. They simply cannot analyse a proposed strategy from how that affects the entire market. So they look at commingling and say to themselves. Bigger pool on a race at Ellerslie, more people will like that, more will be bet on that. More revenue. Multiply that up for heaps of races, bang more revenue. But it doesn't work that way, since people become selective - there isn't an endless supply of punters funds out there. So the punters funds shift to where they get the best quality/price etc, they don't just add more and add more and add more. Yet NZRB and NZTR think they do. Here is what they wrote in the 2007 annual report. "Commingled pools and the expansion of the New Zealand and Australian race programmes will provide increased wagering opportunities for customers on both sides of the Tasman. This will in turn enhance our ability to deliver incremental funding to all three racing codes" That was never going to happen. Delusional

It's a low value card and based on what? There is no way there are anywhere near 40,000 FTEs involved in NZ racing.

They must be thinking it's brilliant -except they aren't betting on it. Tote turnover across all races only down $65m last year with NZ TAB. in 2007, tote was 1.225b (across 24,780 races), 490m on NZ gallops in 2019, tote was 0.885b (across 99,300 races), 220m on NZ gallops

It's lower for the win tote market as well. Admittedly not much, but lower. 14.5% on an Australian race, 15.5% on a NZ one. Ludicrous.

Yes, they added an extra 15,000 races last year to the 85,000 they already operated on as well. And total betting on racing through NZ TAB dropped $28m year on year (including fixed odds). Total tote betting dropped a further $65m.

Maybe, however that won't change the fact that the interest in NZ racing has been depleted. And yet, the people still want the government to fork out to an industry that has little or no interest in NZ. At some point, a government will decide that continuing to fund the NZ industry the way it does is pointless. Why gift it $150m per year when it earns peanuts, and has GDP of peanuts. All because of a decision they took to shift interest away from NZ racing - where it used to earn close to what it got, and still had people interested in it (at least adding to the GDP component).

Yeah - but which punters. Not the ones betting on NZ racing. Tote betting on NZ racing has never been lower. Even with TABCORP investment, less than what it was pre commingling.

Whilst the integrity issues facing NZ racing are large, the biggest impact to NZ gallops revenue and interest in my view was as a result of an idea fully supported by NZ gallops. There haven't been many people that agree with me on this, but the Tabcorp agreement/commingling is likely the biggest impact there has been on NZ gallops revenue/interest in the last 15 years. And it's a very negative one. It was never going to deliver to NZ racing what was suggested. It did what was obvious. There is one very clear illustration of what it would do (and has done). If you owned a bakery in NZ, would you put posters up all over your shop (and in all your advertising), saying that your customers could buy better bakery items elsewhere and they were cheaper elsewhere - and then expect the interest in what your bakery offered, to stay the same? You simply wouldn't do it. Imagine walking into a local bakery and seeing a sign telling people that if they look down the road, they can get some superior bread at Brumby's - and it's cheaper. But feel free to shop here if you want to support local. Great idea. So punters can bet on Australian racing. The takeout on Australian races is lower than on NZ races through the TAB. The racing is arguably massively superior to our own. Cheaper and better quality and with greater price surety. Wow, whouda thought punters would follow that. Yet that is what NZTR and the clubs effectively did by getting in behind the agreement to commingle and shove 50,000+ races down the throats of New Zealand punters. And now there is little interest in NZ gallops. The funny thing in a sad way, is that NZTR and many industry people have praised this as being the best thing for NZ racing. When all it has done has killed interest in our racing, and delivered nothing in revenue. What a winner. I could write a (another) piece in a book about why this was going to fail. I did write that it would fail before it even got agreement. Not much good to us now. And yet, there will still be many that think it's brilliant. I hope they aren't the ones complaining when a good race from NZ finishes and they cross to Mudgee for a maiden on Trackside straight after the race. So in respect of the damage done - I suspect the horse has well and truly bolted.

I agree, the low life scum need to be appropriately dealt with. But most of gallops ills have been sadly self inflicted.

Gallops needs to be more thankful of the greyhounds. They're helping keep them afloat.

I have no idea what that has to do with this site, but hasn't it been great seeing Barry smashing out the winners at places like Ruakaka of all courses! Beautiful. That hidden area is well in profit from what has been put up. And what a surprise when they do that before the races, unlike you, who seems to enjoy talking them up after they've won. What a hero you are.

If it's an H11 and you know they're coming down the outside, the penetrometer reading isn't going to be of much use. I'd be looking for runners drawn the inside to get a nice tidy price advantage myself, as they're all going to the outside anyway.

And here was me thinking it was because you just liked to read all the lovely words you share. The halfwits you talk about have a hell of a lot more knowledge than you could ever. What does that make you? (Rhetorical)

A number of factors there. Scheduling. That is piss poor here. Also, the ratio of grade of races may be out here. If you factor in the number of races at each level going up through grades, remove those sold/retired, and consider those that should be dropping back, I'd say they likely have things out of whack. And when you then schedule based on some notion of what you think is needed without any consideration for what horses are wanting to race/grade/distance at that time - you will end up with what we have today. Either way, the process is poor.

It's good as it levels the playing field. It won't have a huge effect on how things go for horses. But it is definitely worth doing. As for the losing of points, I agree they should go down at the rate that is in line with their performance "over time". That could be quicker than it is. The really interesting part about that for me is that they drop points a lot quicker there than they do here. But again, a method such as the UK one, is better. They will drop more there than in HK there (making the UK system far quicker than here).