Offshore Bookmakers

betsmate said:
Only if the price after the massive Tote takeout was greater than the actual true odds. If is wasn't, then the only guarantee is you won't make money out of betting.
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How massive do you expect the tote takeout to be? What is it in Hong Kong, for example?
 
Desert Orchid said:
Is that a bad thing??

In any case, don't equivalents of these bets exist in other countries where they have a tote monopoly? How possible is it to back a multiple with the exchanges?
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Yes it is a bad thing - take away the multiples and you take away a sizable proportion of betting shop turnover (slip wise at least) on horse racing. Nobody goes into a betting shop in the morning because they fancy a £10 single on the 14:45 at Ripon, it's because they have a multiple bet to place - the OAP's come in and the people from the workplace etc. If you take away the chance of a genuine fixed odds multiple you might as well not open the shop until 10 minutes before the first race.

They have doubles, trebles, Pick 4's, Pick 5's etc. but they're always on consecutive races at one particular track - at least in the case of the US they are or similar to the Magna 7 on seven races split across one companies two or three tracks - it would be similar to having the Super Seven as your multiple bet every day of the week. Would also depend on the pool size, like with the S7 if nobody plays it then the dividends will be poor than if there's a large amount of turnover. I can't see this kind of bet catching on in the UK in a big enough way for it to outnumber the various multiples we already have.

It's not possible to have a multiple on the exchanges for the reasons above - the relative prices people are willing to offer you about X and Y winning are less than you could get with a traditional high street bookmaker or online sportsbook.
 
For the record in 2004 what we currently have as the Tote turned over £1.7bn and donated £11.7m to racing. That would be roughly 73p for every £10,000 they took.

If we were to have a Tote monopoly it would take a hell of a makeover and a totally seperate company which would take years and years to set up - not least due to having to recruit people who know what they're doing with regards to pool betting (of which I don't think we have too many in the UK).
 
That's the kind of factual information that enhances this type of thread, IS. Thanks for that.

I'd be interested to know how much other individual bookies, especially the 'big' (:lol:) ones put back into it. I suspect it's a lot less.

However, you're comparing what the Tote puts back in compared with its turnover. I wonder what percentage of its profit would that be and how that compared with other bookmakers.
 
The tote's main problem is they have to give those with tote direct terminals 70% of their takeout. If there was, god forbid, a tote monopoly they wouldn't have to do that.
 
The Tote also deduct a large amount of the pools for themselves. I forget all the figures but Tote takeout in placepots is c.27%, more for jackpots and even more for the Scoop 6.
 
From the total amount staked, each pool is subject to a deduction as follows:
Totewin Deduction 13.5% Net Pool=86.5% of stakes
Toteplace Deduction 18% Net Pool=82% of stakes
Toteexacta Deduction 26% Net Pool=74% of stakes
Totejackpot Deduction 29% Net Pool=71% of stakes
Toteplacepot Deduction 27% Net Pool=73% of stakes
Totequadpot Deduction 26% Net Pool=74% of stakes
Totetrifecta Deduction 26% Net Pool=74% of stakes
Toteswinger Deduction 26% Net Pool=74% of stakes
Totescoop6 Deduction 30% from each pool Net Pool= 70% of stakes
Totesuper7 Deduction 30% from each pool Net Pool= 70% of stakes
 
Desert Orchid said:
How massive do you expect the tote takeout to be? What is it in Hong Kong, for example?
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I believe that the take in Hong Kong is 15.7%.

To demonstrate how this just eats up any value, take a mythical two runner race between two evens shots. To get an 11/10 "value" bet about one runner, Joe Public would have to have back the other "evens shot" in to nearly 2/5!!!! (subject to my maths!)

Perhaps more pertinently, there would be no opportunity to take an early-priced 11/10 before a bookmaker realised his error through weight-of-money.

I understand the cute left-wing thought of giving the proceeds back to racing rather than to "greedy" shareholders. I understand owners pining for increased prize money for the show that they put on. But the punter, who in effect would be subsidising this, is the one that would get the raw end of the deal.
 
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The bookmakers would all move offshore - as such the only ones who would really suffer would be Coral, Ladbrokes, Hills, Betfred who have a major high-street presence, this would result in major job losses in addition to the closure of call-centres in London, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Warrington (might already have closed), Harrogate etc.

Joe Public could still bet with the Tote but anyone else could bet with an "overseas" bookmaker - ie. VC, Stan James, Hills in Gibraltar or one of the Malta or Channel Islands firms providing the government didn't outlaw access to such sites. The real loser is the every day punter in the high street - the real winner would be the bookmakers since they could take all their cash overseas and wouldn't have to give a penny back to British racing.

They already give a sizable proportion of ALL profits (as far as i'm aware) to British racing - of which I suspect a fair amount would come from betting on Premiership football.
 
Irish Stamp said:
The bookmakers would all move offshore - as such the only ones who would really suffer would be Coral, Ladbrokes, Hills, Betfred who have a major high-street presence, this would result in major job losses in addition to the closure of call-centres in London, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Warrington (might already have closed), Harrogate etc.

Joe Public could still bet with the Tote but anyone else could bet with an "overseas" bookmaker - ie. VC, Stan James, Hills in Gibraltar or one of the Malta or Channel Islands firms providing the government didn't outlaw access to such sites. The real loser is the every day punter in the high street - the real winner would be the bookmakers since they could take all their cash overseas and wouldn't have to give a penny back to British racing.

They already give a sizable proportion of ALL profits (as far as i'm aware) to British racing - of which I suspect a fair amount would come from betting on Premiership football.
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IS, they only give 10% of their profits on UK racing to the levy.
 
Thanks HT - the way things are going for the bookies the BHA would be better accepting the 10% gleefully or negotiating a proportion of racing profits rather than all sports. The bookies on the high street are already only open at 8:30am for the FOBT's - they churn it out from those having seen how much we used to take out of them each night in relation to how much we paid out (at least £400 profit per machine everyday, 4 machines would be £1600 a day or £11,200 a week per shop at a conservative estimate). Compare that to the amount of money that a shop will make in profit from betting on horse racing and the authorities would be better just taking the percentage of all profits rather than just racing - unless bookies can come up with another way of making money from horses, longer opening hours if they could get that through? new racing markets ie. HK, Australia, US, Spain? more Virtuals (I believe Hills now have Virtual F1 and Virtual Speedway)?
 
If the BHA are losing out on funding for the levy by the bookmakers going offshore, could they choose not to provide said bookmakers with the data of runners/riders etc, which would obviously prevent the bookmakers being able to offer odds on their sites?
 
davidjohnson said:
If the BHA are losing out on funding for the levy by the bookmakers going offshore, could they choose not to provide said bookmakers with the data of runners/riders etc, which would obviously prevent the bookmakers being able to offer odds on their sites?
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There was a test case about this involving William Hill; didn't Hills win?
 
The BHA don't provide bookmakers with the data feed of runners/riders anyway - they pay either the PA or SiS for the information and data feeds (and probably now TurfTV).
 
Presumably those third parties get the data from an original source though? Which I'm presuming is the BHA. Doesn't matter anyway as Rory shown that Hills or whomever for that matter just about have free reign to take what bets they like and pay nothing for the privilege.
 
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