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TABCorp to kick the small fish out of the pools?

What's the reasoning behind this I wonder?

RWWA Media Release

Racing and Wagering Western Australia (RWWA) has today been advised of Tabcorp's intention to end the pooling agreement and the fixed odds agreement with RWWA by mid 2009.

It is understood all participants in Tabcorp's pooling and fixed odds arrangements have received similar notification.

RWWA and Tabcorp have operated a successful pooling agreement since 1991 and RWWA has been an integral member of the national fixed odds arrangement since 2000.

RWWA chief executive Richard Burt said Tabcorp's decision to end both agreements was a major surprise.

"The decision is completely inconsistent with the business relationship between both parties," Mr Burt said.

"RWWA has been working closely with Tabcorp in recent months on a number of key projects to improve and expand our product offering.

"RWWA will immediately move to assess its options, one of which might be to renegotiate new agreements.

"The timing of Tabcorp's decision is significant, given the recent pressures that the racing industry has had to face with Equine Influenza and product fees."

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Very interesting. A few guesses here:

1 - NSW and Victoria are finally going to link up and the smaller states will be too much work for an already-exhausted IT system.

2 - TABCorp want to re-negotiate the deals since the gentleman's agreement between states re racing revenue crossing borders is now gone

3 - TABCorp now want to compete in every state and can make more money by taking clients off the local totes.

All that will happen now is they will all move across to UniTAB (who have now officially purchased Centreracing, the worst-kept secret of the betting industry), which will hopefully mean only two TABs left as Victoria & NSW finally combine. Eventually they'll get around to having one national tote and stop their bickering...

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