Kevin67 weighs in to racing’s funding model debate

I hope all readers of my blog had a great time over the festive season.  It’s a new year but already it feels like Groundhog Day. For those of you who missed last week’s edition of the Goondiwindi Argus, it contained a short piece highlighting a full page advertisement that was placed in the Brisbane Courier [...]

Racing NSW wastes an opportunity to clear the air over race fields rebates

 The default position adopted by Racing NSW when they can’t counter an argument with sound reasoning or contrary facts is to accuse the other side (normally Betfair, or me specifically) of “spin”.  That was certainly the position taken by Racing NSW in yesterday’s (3 Dec 2010) Daily Telegraph. Unfortunately, the article hasn’t made it to the [...]

Tabcorp and the NSW Government agree: lowering takeout rates means more revenue for the racing industry

Yesterday the NSW Racing Minister announced an intention to lower the NSW TAB’s tax rate to allow them to offer lower margin wagering products to large customers. Congratulations to the NSW Government for recognising that the NSW TAB needs to lower its effective takeout rates in order to compete for price sensitive customers and generate additional [...]

Learn the game before you play the man

The Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Association (“TROA”) put out a media release yesterday criticising RVL for adopting a revenue-based funding model.  There’s nothing all that surprising about that, and it made a good story for the Herald Sun and The Age. The level of sophistication of TROA’s argument is made clear in this passage from their media [...]

Race fields returns in Victoria and NSW: letting the facts get in the way of the story

One of the things that still amazes me about the funding debate in racing is how easily people are prepared to swallow information that is dished up – often anonymously – by the supporters of a TAB-only wagering environment. Over the past two days, they’ve really outdone themselves. Today’s Age reports that RVL’s revenue-based funding model will [...]

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