Entain cutting costs! Writing on the wall?

[Brodie]

I have read where Entain is cutting costs like laying off many staff in Australasia,

Reality I dont believe has hit home at any stage with HRNZ that their woeful handling of the Entain cash splash is going to be a nail in the coffin of harness racing in many parts of NZ!

Just do not get it that these people on big salaries at the TAB and HRNZ are just not intelligent enough to acknowledge that they have stuffed up!

Anyway not happy that some of us are going to be proven right when Entain  does pull the pin on all this funding as it will affect so many in the industry hugely.

Not sure it is a particularly financially sound idea to be breeding standardbreds this year, as by the time they are old enough to race they will be racing for significantly lower stakes unfortunately.

The Entain deal has been mishandled shockingly and we have been telling them this for a long time,  but then we arent on the pay roll on big salaries and trying to make things look better than they actually are!

[Gammalite]

Not as bad as what you think all the time Brodster.  NZ harness is near Best in the world.

Because you have Great people running it and participating in it. 

Better to put money up for the participants by a betting company ? , than Not put any up lol. 🤣😂  5 years or 20 years , some is better than none 😁

They make millions from the betting mate. NZ harness just a small pimple on their radar. Aus harness even less of a problem for them , so they use their Sub branch of LADBROKES to support the Aussie harness . all year. every year.

Don't worry if they cut funding . It'll stop the Aussie 's coming and taking most of it 😂, and your 'Bush' racing for average money will just continue on as if nothing as happened.

Most Clubs have SPONSORS Brodster. They'll get the chance to chip in and support the industry again . Feed companies like the amazing QLD Garrards Horse and Hound already sponsor NZ for many hundreds of thousands annually. 

PRYDE Feeds sponsor the Big Victoria racing nights , and all the Group 1's. Vic still makes a loss annually because betting is a lot less these days , and not as prevalent as it once was. 

It's not just betting agencies that will keep you going . It's ALL THOSE OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES AS WELL.

The Studs (farms) and their Millionaires proprietors sponsor PLENTY already. Plenty of Sires Stakes racing.

Has happened for years . Long before Entain came along. TAB didn't run the show . HRNZ do. get with the program.  

[Brodie]

31 minutes ago, Gammalite said:

Not as bad as what you think all the time Brodster.  NZ harness is near Best in the world.

Because you have Great people running it and participating in it. 

Better to put money up for the participants by a betting company ? , than Not put any up lol. 🤣😂  5 years or 20 years , some is better than none 😁

They make millions from the betting mate. NZ harness just a small pimple on their radar. Aus harness even less of a problem for them , so they use their Sub branch of LADBROKES to support the Aussie harness . all year. every year.

Don't worry if they cut funding . It'll stop the Aussie 's coming and taking most of it 😂, and your 'Bush' racing for average money will just continue on as if nothing as happened.

Most Clubs have SPONSORS Brodster. They'll get the chance to chip in and support the industry again . Feed companies like the amazing QLD Garrards Horse and Hound already sponsor NZ for many hundreds of thousands annually. 

PRYDE Feeds sponsor the Big Victoria racing nights , and all the Group 1's. Vic still makes a loss annually because betting is a lot less these days , and not as prevalent as it once was. 

It's not just betting agencies that will keep you going . It's ALL THOSE OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES AS WELL.

The Studs (farms) and their Millionaires proprietors sponsor PLENTY already. Plenty of Sires Stakes racing.

Has happened for years . Long before Entain came along. TAB didn't run the show . HRNZ do. get with the program.  

Gamma, can not agree with you on several points you have made!

Do not believe that NZ has great people running the racing in NZ!

They may be nice people but many of them have not the business or financial success or sense that we require at the moment.

Many of the decisions that have been made have in my humble opinion been very poor, and the industry is going to suffer big time in the next year or two.

Several of the posters on BOAY do have the harness racing industry best interests at heart, whereas it appears the ones being paid are only there to collect salaries.

Many examples of this that I have pointed out in the past, and there is quite a list which have been poor and detrimental to racing infustry.

Australia is a much larger country obviously than NZ, and I do not believe we have anyone  or business that will be able to sustain making large payments to make racing sustainable in the future.

Havent heard anything from the committee that Winstone tried to form to brainstorm to help racing?

Sorry Gamma, but like so many others in NZ, we have no confidence in the ones making the vital decisions currently.

They actually need people who have run successful businesses in the past, as we just havent had that for a long time if at all?

Mates getting the jobs without a proven track record just does not work nowadays, despite what they like to do.

Brodie just telling it the way it appears!

 

 

Edited yesterday at 07:57 AM by Brodie

[Gammalite]

18 minutes ago, Brodie said:

Gamma, can not agree with you on several points you have made!

Do not believe that NZ has great people running the racing in NZ!

They may be nice people but many of them have not the business or financial success or sense that we require at the moment

ENTAIN is a very successful company. and HRNZ has been very successful and done racing of 'The Highest order' for decades.

So not sure why you keep thinking these Professional People are so Bad at their jobs all the time .? they not exactly employed off the street? they're qualified Professional people. and results are great. It's your results that you're worried about. and don't /won't/can't accept that people don't bet on harness (or even support the sport ,like in the Golden 70's-80's era , critically that were  before POKIES and LOTTO. 

I know you had a political agenda and are one of those party supporters that will never change their support of a particular one,  so think the other parties can't do the job. So really you are impossible to argue with . no flexibility 😉

Harness racing is Unique as a lot of the Officials actually love the Sport , and strive for new Innovations , and to keep the sport going. ( and for better prizemoney and racing than ever too) and are doing a Sterling job.

But because the Betting is down , you think they're all failing. It's just a sign of the times Brodster. I'm sure you and I punt a LOT less than we used to. 

You guys won't even support North Island trotting at All ? so you're actually The Problem. if there is one . and can't see it lol 😋 (me too, and probably half the nation as well . racing is struggling too it seems? )  

for example mate,  I'd only find one in a thousand people in QLD that has even heard of champion Leap To Fame (Not connected to the sport). He didn't even get on the news winning the Interdominion in July.  You wouldn't find a single person that knows/ or cares he won the NZ Betcha race and NZ FFA> ..... the golden age is over 

 

[Brodie]

12 minutes ago, Gammalite said:

ENTAIN is a very successful company. and HRNZ has been very successful and done racing of 'The Highest order' for decades.

So not sure why you keep thinking these Professional People are so Bad at their jobs all the time .? they not exactly employed off the street? they're qualified Professional people. and results are great. It's your results that you're worried about. and don't /won't/can't accept that people don't bet on harness (or even support the sport ,like in the Golden 70's-80's era , critically that were  before POKIES and LOTTO. 

I know you had a political agenda and are one of those party supporters that will never change their support of a particular one,  so think the other parties can't do the job. So really you are impossible to argue with . no flexibility 😉

Harness racing is Unique as a lot of the Officials actually love the Sport , and strive for new Innovations , and to keep the sport going. ( and for better prizemoney and racing than ever too) and are doing a Sterling job.

But because the Betting is down , you think they're all failing. It's just a sign of the times Brodster. I'm sure you and I punt a LOT less than we used to. 

You guys won't even support North Island trotting at All ? so you're actually The Problem. if there is one . and can't see it lol 😋 (me too, and probably half the nation as well . racing is struggling too it seems? )  

for example mate,  I'd only find one in a thousand people in QLD that has even heard of champion Leap To Fame (Not connected to the sport). He didn't even get on the news winning the Interdominion in July.  You wouldn't find a single person that knows/ or cares he won the NZ Betcha race and NZ FFA> ..... the golden age is over 

 

Gamma, I have no party affiliations as such, but would never ever vote for the lefty, socislists/ communists as that would be the ruination of NZ.

Liebour, TPM and the Greens are delusional and could never make anything successful!

Personally do not believe that those in charge have had much business success from their efforts, however more than happy to be proven wrong?

Gamma, of course my turnover on harness racing is down, solely due to the efforts of the Bookmakers at the TAB!

Not going to tell on BOAY but if you knew half of it you would be more understanding of Brodie’s point of view.

At the end of the day if Entain is this great company that cares about racing in NZ and we have successful business people making the decisions for HRNZ then we have nothing to worry about!

Gamma, what are your thoughts about the mass DCM’s that are coming from Entain with many more to come so they can cut costs?  
Would you be confident that they will be keen to prop up NZ racing when the 5 years is up?

[Nowornever]

2 hours ago, Brodie said:

I have read where Entain is cutting costs like laying off many staff in Australasia,

I heard they are ending the rebates for big punters next year. No surprise to me they are always biting the hand that feeds them. 

[Nowornever]

47 minutes ago, Gammalite said:

Harness racing is Unique as a lot of the Officials actually love the Sport , and strive for new Innovations , and to keep the sport going. ( and for better prizemoney and racing than ever too) and are doing a Sterling job.

Incorrect. Entain is a listed multinational whose priorities are and always will be margin, profit, and shareholder return. Racing is actually the least profitable product they operate. Because it isn’t delivering the returns they expected, they’re now doing what every global wagering giant does, cutting costs, trimming fat, and making the product cheaper to run.

This is why you’ll see a major push in the next twelve months toward centralising tracks, reducing dates, reducing staff, and stripping racing back to the bare minimum. It’s not because they “love the sport” it’s because consolidation lowers overheads.

Entains long term aim is simple. Shift their focus to high margin products sports betting and, soon enough, online casino games and let racing shrink into a small supporting act. It will be smaller, cheaper, and far less important to their bottom line.

Whether racing thrives or dies isn’t a concern for them. Right now it’s an expensive, low margin pimple on a global balance sheet, and they’ll keep pruning until it stops hurting the numbers.

[sarge]

Are you understanding the full business model Brodie?

My estimate is that roughly half a billion $ has been pissed against the wall since the new Racing Act was introduced in 2003.

Poor changes at the TAB , poor employment choices  at both the TAB and code level and some super dumb deployments of projects, both at the TAB and code levels.

Entain has another 22 years or so to go. There’s a contract in place and they will milk as much as they can until their contract ends/or they on-sell.

From your own perspective Brodie, Entain will always have restricted punters. You’re successful and at least 20 others that I know are also restricted.  It’s bs really - the limit should be on the bet size not the bet prize.

As for HRNZ -  their part in this jigsaw doesn’t have a casting vote as they’re perfunctory only, in any Entain decision. So whether some meetings or venues do better than others,that’s their decision.

On the bright side….we ain’t in China so at least we can at least have a bet!

 

 

[Brodie]

10 minutes ago, sarge said:

Are you understanding the full business model Brodie?

My estimate is that roughly half a billion $ has been pissed against the wall since the new Racing Act was introduced in 2003.

Poor changes at the TAB , poor employment choices  at both the TAB and code level and some super dumb deployments of projects, both at the TAB and code levels.

Entain has another 22 years or so to go. There’s a contract in place and they will milk as much as they can until their contract ends/or they on-sell.

From your own perspective Brodie, Entain will always have restricted punters. You’re successful and at least 20 others that I know are also restricted.  It’s bs really - the limit should be on the bet size not the bet prize.

As for HRNZ -  their part in this jigsaw doesn’t have a casting vote as they’re perfunctory only, in any Entain decision. So whether some meetings or venues do better than others,that’s their decision.

On the bright side….we ain’t in China so at least we can at least have a bet!

 

 

Agree with every one of your statements.

Entain entered into the contract with no interest with improving racing, the money they were to put into racing was just the bribe that made the TAB think they were the White Knights!

They were after Sports Betting and online gambling and the racing was effectively the liability they were prepared to wear for a few years.

Yes HRNZ decision making to make harness racing sustainable has been very poor and they have not had the successful business people that They needed.

It is very hard to fathom why many of these decisions have been made but they just seem to pluck them out of the air and are not held to account.

what I do know is that they are definitely shortening the life of harness racing being viable for many in the industry despite what they say about everything going well! 
 

[Brodie]

Just watched “The Guerin Report”.

the CEO of Entain here and Australia, Andrew Vouros was interviewed by Michael Guerin.

Was a wee bit interesting and appeared to be some not so convincing answers given.

Guerin asked Andrew Vouros whether at the end of the 5 years Entain would pull the plug on racing?

To be fair he was hardly going to say yes we will be pulling the plug, but you can take it that they will certainly not be as generous as they currently are.

He was pretty airy fairy with his answer and think we know what is going to happen?

Mr Vouros also stated that they were in the business of selling more and more bets to increase turnover!

Well I can tell you that that is an untruth and he knows it, but probably the same worldwide.

They could be increasing turnover significantly however  they are restricting turnover massively by several means, ridiculous restrictions on punters and stopping punters from being able to bet at all on some options!!!!!

Interesting somehow that Mr Vouros knew what per centage of punters had their first ever bet on a horse race on the Melbourne Cup this year lol 😂  How?????

They couldve  been betting every year with cash at a TAB rather than TAB account.

At the end of the day it is their business that NZ sold out to, and hopefully racing thrives due to their actions, but do we believe it is going to?

 

 

 

[Shab]

8 minutes ago, Brodie said:

Interesting somehow that Mr Vouros knew what per centage of punters had their first ever bet on a horse race on the Melbourne Cup this year lol 😂  How?????

There's a whole bunch of punters having their first ever bet on  Melbourne Cup because they're 18 and couldn't have a bet the year before cos not old enough. Not because Entain have won them over or any other reason he wants you to believe.

[mikeynz]

You wonder if they are letting the big sports punters on in the head to head options, on the Cricket, Rugby and the like, recently with Geo blocking they extended the punters promise to some sports options to a minimum of a $1000, so one wonders what happens to the guys who might want 50 grand on the ABs or the Aussie head to head, Betfair was the place for them, even had honest cash outs, are those punters being accepted or are not welcome, meaning many have given up.

[Shab]

You ain’t going to catch the 50k punter with your legislative net are you. If you’ve got 50k to bet with you’re going to work out a way around it and you ain’t going to be interested in their discount odds.

[Nowornever]

11 hours ago, Brodie said:

Just watched “The Guerin Report”.

the CEO of Entain here and Australia, Andrew Vouros was interviewed by Michael Guerin.

Was a wee bit interesting and appeared to be some not so convincing answers given.

As usual a positve spin put on everything by Vouris.

If everything is so rosy, why the sudden religious conversion to "core Business only"? Why are Elite rebates being axed and replaced with "bespoke generosity"? Why are Entain laying off staff in Australaisia and cutting non core stuff like "The Racing Club"?

He talks like a growth CEO, but the actions look the opposite. He is slashing anything non core even if it hurts the most valued high spend customers. He openly says the growth lever is sport and wanting to capture or cross selling sports customers into racing.

He is also starting to play the blame game saying racing needs to deliver the product and Entain only sells the bets. On paper that sounds fair. In practice, it’s a setup, Entain takes the credit if the numbers look good. If the numbers fall short, they can point at the codes and say field sizes too small, too many abandonments, not enough tier one tracks, in other words racing didn’t hold up its end.

So yeah, the interview sounded slick and reassuring. But if you strip out the PR gloss there is a lot of doubt, mixed signals and unanswered questions about where this is all really heading.

 

[the galah]

1 hour ago, Nowornever said:

As usual a positve spin put on everything by Vouris.

If everything is so rosy, why the sudden religious conversion to "core Business only"? Why are Elite rebates being axed and replaced with "bespoke generosity"? Why are Entain laying off staff in Australaisia and cutting non core stuff like "The Racing Club"?

He talks like a growth CEO, but the actions look the opposite. He is slashing anything non core even if it hurts the most valued high spend customers. He openly says the growth lever is sport and wanting to capture or cross selling sports customers into racing.

He is also starting to play the blame game saying racing needs to deliver the product and Entain only sells the bets. On paper that sounds fair. In practice, it’s a setup, Entain takes the credit if the numbers look good. If the numbers fall short, they can point at the codes and say field sizes too small, too many abandonments, not enough tier one tracks, in other words racing didn’t hold up its end.

So yeah, the interview sounded slick and reassuring. But if you strip out the PR gloss there is a lot of doubt, mixed signals and unanswered questions about where this is all really heading.

 

i watched the interview and my take was exactly the same as yours.

The entain man expressed empathy and tried to create the impression everything entain does is in the best overall interests of the nz racing industry,but reality is you could tell from his words thats his focus is on whats best for entains bottom line.And so it should be,he works for entain.

but whats best for entain is not always whats best for nz racing.A lot is but a lot isn't.Media and racing adminsitrators tend to mislead on that.

and this entain bloke lumped all nz racing under the same umbrella.

Well,we all know its different.

we all know one of the major failings of the current hrnz decision making is they place the same weight on the relevance and importance of factors that apply to the galloping code as to applying to harness racing.This entain fella kept empathising the need for racing to be based around the main tracks and we all know gallopings main tracks are where the nz population numbers are.

And we all know that perhaps the biggest flaw in the current hrnz leaderships thinking ,is they think harness racing should work the same.In other words our current administrators make decision making around what they think shouild be the main driving factors(e.g.population),ignoring the realities.

so that entain man and entain will do what they do,but its what hrnz do that really counts,and most can see the current leadership are dreamers,not realists.

as to entain cutting back on the rebates.

the nz tab have been whittling away at that for the last 5 years,even prior to entain.

people who say they should have a blanket restriction on winning punters on ff,really have no idea whatsoever of what they are talking about.

I have given specific examples of why that type of thinking is ridiculaous.

every punter has different spends and different pools they invest in and decisions should have been made around what was best for the overall tab bottom line,and that means have different approaches for different people based on the circumstances

 the same applies to the rebates.

For example,if someone is getting $10,000 a month in rebates from tote spend,then obviously the tab will be receiving around $30,000-$40,000 a month in tote % takeout from each dollar invested,depending on what bet type the spend is on.
So if that punter was say generating an average overall profit of $5000 per month ,which included the rebates in that persons profit loss ledger,then if the tab take aways the rebates,the tab have just made that person now return a loss of $5000. So whats going to happen.Your going to lose that customers tote spend and the $30-40,000 tab income that went with it.In other words to save $10,000 ,you cost yourself $40,000

So there is real bad down sides to the tab knocking the rebates on the head. It doesn't effect me. They reneged on a verbal agreement they had with me a few years ago so i just stopped betting as without the rebates,it wasn't worth the efoort. So your going to get people doing the same thing again,and amny of them are much bigger punters than i was.

Edited 7 hours ago by the galah

[Brodie]

The Guerin Report interviewing Andrew Vouros CEO of Entain Australasia was a very good idea, as we hear very little from Entain and the NZ TAB .

Surely it should be a more regular thing?

Michael Guerin did ask some questions that needed to be asked but Vouros was quite vague at times and was allowed to get away with it!

Where were the questions regarding North Island harness racing battles and where he sees it ending up? 
Of course he was never going to say Entain was pulling the plug at the 5 year mark but anyone with business sense knows what the answer is.

Brad Steele was interviewed by Greg O’Connor a few months ago and he was more than happy with the way things were going with harness racing!

Needs to have the serious questions asked again as everyone I speak to, have no confidence at all in the HRNZ decision making nowadays!

Time will tell!

[Nowornever]

2 hours ago, the galah said:

For example,if someone is getting $10,000 a month in rebates from tote spend,then obviously the tab will be receiving around $30,000-$40,000 a month in tote % takeout from each dollar invested,depending on what bet type the spend is on.
So if that punter was say generating an average overall profit of $5000 per month ,which included the rebates in that persons profit loss ledger,then if the tab take aways the rebates,the tab have just made that person now return a loss of $5000. So whats going to happen.Your going to lose that customers tote spend and the $30-40,000 tab income that went with it.In other words to save $10,000 ,you cost yourself $40,000

I think the decision makers might very well be brain dead or close to it, unless their aim is to kill off the tote or racing altogether.

[Brodie]

31 minutes ago, Nowornever said:

I think the decision makers might very well be brain dead or close to it, unless their aim is to kill off the tote or racing altogether.

The Ones making the decisions arent really that business savvy!

The tote turnover figures are grossly inflated due to all of this bonus bets and bonus cash otherwise the tote pools are shockingly lower than years ago.

Of course there is more punters that bet final fields nowadays but these final field turnover numbers are significantly lower than they could be.

The way the Bookies operate is very amateurish with restrictions, non allowance of punters on options and low amounts accepted on early wagering, as well as odds being slashed far too much.

They do not want to increase turnover at all despite what they state or they would not be operating the way they do!!

 

[the galah]

2 hours ago, Brodie said:

The Ones making the decisions arent really that business savvy!

The tote turnover figures are grossly inflated due to all of this bonus bets and bonus cash otherwise the tote pools are shockingly lower than years ago.

Of course there is more punters that bet final fields nowadays but these final field turnover numbers are significantly lower than they could be.

The way the Bookies operate is very amateurish with restrictions, non allowance of punters on options and low amounts accepted on early wagering, as well as odds being slashed far too much.

They do not want to increase turnover at all despite what they state or they would not be operating the way they do!!

 

i don't think you can use bonus cash or bonus bets on tote pools,but yes the bonus bets and bonus cash  is inflating ff turnovers. 

as you and i have pointed out before,if the tab assess the need for restictions based solely on whether a punter is profitable on ff betting or not,they fail to factor in the big pictute of the overall contribution to the racing industry by each individual punter,,whether it be tote betting takeouts the tab receive,ownership,sponsorship,etc,etc.

and  the tab/entain have demonstrated they are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face type of thing. I can only assume that within the tab there are people who receive bonuses based around how much profit they can gwenerate within ff and those people couldn't care less that they are losing a punters tote turnover because of their decisions,because it doesn't effect the assesment of their bonuses.

its the only explanation i could come up with for what i call the level of stupidity as regards  some of their decisions around  individuals in the past.

3 hours ago, Nowornever said:

I think the decision makers might very well be brain dead or close to it, unless their aim is to kill off the tote or racing altogether.

i think your right.

clearly they have a strategy to kill off all tote each way tote betting,especially tote place bettingi.

The pools are so pitiful sometimes that theres simply no point in having place bets on the tote.

The tote betting,especially the tote place betting,these days is just for the $1 ew punter. If you used to spend a  hundred or two a race,or now days even a $20 place bet,then you would have flagged tote betting long ago as you cut the odds too much.

 

and the powers that be still haven't said what the total betting or attendance figure were for nz cup day.Obviously they can't spin that to make it sound positive enough for them.

And i wonder how the breeding numbers are going.They must one day hit rock bottom,but that doesn't seem to have happened yet.I wonder how bad this year will be. Drive past a couple of the studs and i think you will see the answer.Where have all the horses gone?

Edited 1 hour ago by the galah

[Brodie]

They clearly do not want place bettors whether it is tote or fixed!

The pools on place tote is significantly lower than tote win pools now and it did not used to be this way!

It has occurred since some moron thought they would get rid of showing any place odds both fixed and tote!!
Total lunacy and just one of the many idiotic decisions that has been made by TAB to put the NZ punter off.

The Brains Trust is missing on many occasions.