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Moonee Valley reveal wagering figures from Saturday's blacked-out meeting

Where's the money going? (Image: Supplied)
Editor
24th June, 2015
3

The Moonee Valley Racing Club has published insights into Saturday’s wagering turnover, revealing a headline figure of a 5.1% increase, year on year.

As MVRC themselves point-out, the addition of an extra race – nine races in 2015 compared to eight races in 2014 – is a significant factor.

Furthermore, the figures suggest that the turnover with the Victorian TAB and NSW TAB was down, but corporate bookmaker turnover was up, substantially:

Here are some quick numbers, picking out some of the more interesting aspects.

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The additional of an extra race at Moonee Valley certainly helped stave off any headlines of a big fall in wagering.

It is very hard to compare apples with apples. However, we can but try.

If we know nine races led to a 5.1% increase, we can make some assumptions from there, such as that the wagering was split evenly across nine races.

If the club had held the same eight races as in 2014, the numbers indicate that eight race would have seen more like a 6.57% fall in wagering. That’s an 11.7% turnaround of fortunes, just with one more race.

Those numbers are rubbery and are only back of the envelope, but they point out the obvious when the number of races in a meeting are increased.

Are there enough good horses around to support an increased number of races in a meeting? It does help that NSW has been inundated with rain, and the likes of the Hawkes team have been sending horses south to find firmer tracks, but stocks can only be stretched so far.

The second issue is that while turnover was on the improve for corporate bookmakers, Victorian racing itself would surely much prefer that money to be flowing to its joint-venture partner in the TAB.

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The only minor win for Racing Victoria is that they are charging both Sportsbet and Crownbet 0.5% on turnover to stream races live, with a clean feed provided. Other corporates, from a short list of William Hill, Bet365 and/or Ladbrokes all looking like coming on board, and The Roar understands that the revenue from a major corporate bookmaker can be at least $1 million over a season.

But Racing Victoria will know too well they are robbing Peter to pay Paul, and getting cents in the dollars they’d receive.

While the corporates remain offshore – as is their right by law – the industry need wagering to be with the TAB to get significant returns.

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