Tote Betting Through The Ages
West Australian Racing
Ridersonthestorm33
10,942 posts
Just read an interesting post from a guy on another forum and worth a read.
In the mid 1960s the Tab totaliser pool was given the green light. Their was only around a dozen meetings a week to bet on and takeout rates were around 12% and with a lack of computerisation the staffing to accept and process bets was very labour intensive. Racing participants all argued it was tough to make a living.
40 years roll on by and we betting on 100's of races from all 3 codes 24/7 and as the tote becomes more computerised staffing levels are much lower on a pro - rata comparison and legislation was made that the average tote takeout across all bet types could be no more than 16%.
By this stage the tote was moving from Govt operation to privatisation - was stated at the time to be the saviour of the industry. However many racing participants argued it didn't work and that it was still tough to make a living.
So as come closer to the present and the cap of 16% is still not enough - more money is needed and the average take rises quickly to over 20%. We also have race fields legislation getting the corporates to pay a bit more.
So here we are now today with world pools and co mingling increasing the rake even more.
He ends his comment with a reasonable question - With all the punting that goes on these days racing and sport 24/7 via digital platforms why should punters be paying almost double the rake than they were paying 60 years ago ?
Tend to agree with him - and that argument of "stability of pools" cough cough and other hocus pocus talk - on the whole there's only one thing that affects dividends and that's take out rate. Not forgetting too - the "rort" of rounding down dividends on most pools to the nearest 10 cents.
Are world pools, co mingling and a national tote pool the answer ? I'm not so sure.
In the mid 1960s the Tab totaliser pool was given the green light. Their was only around a dozen meetings a week to bet on and takeout rates were around 12% and with a lack of computerisation the staffing to accept and process bets was very labour intensive. Racing participants all argued it was tough to make a living.
40 years roll on by and we betting on 100's of races from all 3 codes 24/7 and as the tote becomes more computerised staffing levels are much lower on a pro - rata comparison and legislation was made that the average tote takeout across all bet types could be no more than 16%.
By this stage the tote was moving from Govt operation to privatisation - was stated at the time to be the saviour of the industry. However many racing participants argued it didn't work and that it was still tough to make a living.
So as come closer to the present and the cap of 16% is still not enough - more money is needed and the average take rises quickly to over 20%. We also have race fields legislation getting the corporates to pay a bit more.
So here we are now today with world pools and co mingling increasing the rake even more.
He ends his comment with a reasonable question - With all the punting that goes on these days racing and sport 24/7 via digital platforms why should punters be paying almost double the rake than they were paying 60 years ago ?
Tend to agree with him - and that argument of "stability of pools" cough cough and other hocus pocus talk - on the whole there's only one thing that affects dividends and that's take out rate. Not forgetting too - the "rort" of rounding down dividends on most pools to the nearest 10 cents.
Are world pools, co mingling and a national tote pool the answer ? I'm not so sure.