Sport is made for betting

I'm sick of this bullshit of the 'age of forgiveness'. Not that long ago, people had honour - when they laid their cards on the table and screwed up royally, they packed their bags and left. These days it's like the Aussie cricket team - harder to leave than it is to get in, no matter how shit you are at what you do. Ricky Ponting was allowed to lose the Ashes three times before being forced to walk the plank as captain. If you can bullshit with the best of them, you've got a job for life apparently. BHA Chief Exec Paul Roy has made at least three absolute blunders whilst at the helm which should have sent him to the dole queue a long time ago. But it seems he is impossible to sack and won't walk because he has less class than a Premier League footballer with a superinjunction. Blunder 1 - in his other role as big cheese of an investment firm, he recommended buying a big chunk of shares in Betfair. The fact he didn't notice they were massively overvalu...

It wasn't much of a secret after rumours broke last night but BetFred have today been named as the successful bidder for the UK Tote. Traditionalists will have a bit of a moan but one bid was based on cold, hard cash; the other was based on a lot of hope which ultimately could have seen racing sink even further into the mire. It still puzzles me why people were so wholeheartedly in favour of a bid team which included the likes of Chris 'one race is fixed in Britain every day' Bell who had no problem with his former firm Ladbrokes operating its phone and online operations offshore to dodge tax and levy. Fred's no saint but he has to be admired for the empire he has built. Betfred named new owners of the Tote BOOKMAKERS Betfred have won the race to buy the Tote and on Friday morning signed a contract with the government to buy the state-owned betting operator for a total of £265 million. Net proceeds will be £180m, which will be split 50-50 between the government an...

Gee, never would have seen this coming - the Irish government wants to introduce a 2% tax on all wagers with firms licensed in Ireland. Very few of their competitors will have to pay it, so why should they for their online and telephone operations? So off to Gibraltar they will probably go.... Paddy Power considers moving operations abroad Paddy Power will consider moving its internet and phone betting operations abroad if the government goes ahead with plans for a 2 per cent tax on all bets, according to the company’s chief executive. Patrick Kennedy said that a new tax regime would unfairly disadvantage Paddy Power, which employs around 800 people in its internet and phone operations in Tallaght in Dublin. Most of its online competitors did not have a significant presence in Ireland and took a ‘‘catch-me-if-you-can approach’’ to regulation, so they would be difficult to tax, he said. ‘‘If we face a substantial tax, my board would - and should - turn around and say: at what s...

No great surprises here as the Betfair share price continued to slide, they needed to do something. Sources told me that a Gibraltar office was being fitted out several weeks ago in preparation for the move, which shocked nobody. Do Betfair deserve to be singled out for criticism in moving their betting operations (but very few of their staff) to Gibraltar? No, they're not the first grandmother-selling company to do it, but hopefully they'll be the last. Word is that the DCMS are close to announcing new regulations for gambling operators targetting the UK - pay the full amount of tax (and hopefully levy) that a fully UK-based firm pays or you will not be allowed to advertise within the UK. In theory, this should raise questions re European law, but other countries such as France and Italy have managed it, so now is the time for the UK government to show their muscle (though hopefully not William Hague - he couldn't scare a kitten). And after that, it wouldn't be suc...

Front page of today's Racing Post - "Chandler ups ante with levy pledge related to exchanges". The British betting industry's no.1 tax and levy dodger, Victor Chandler, who led the move to Gibraltar over a decade ago, has pledged to start paying levy on his offshore business if Betfair gets taxed/levied as he believes is right! What right does he have to declare himself holier than thou? He currently pays levy on his ONE shop in London and his on-course racing business, which would hold a pittance in turnover compared to his Gibraltar business. "The whole centre of the problem with the levy lies with betting exchanges," he says. This is the bloke who did a runner to Gibraltar in 1999 to avoid paying tax and levy in the first place. How can the system be screwed because of exchanges when tax-dodgers like him started the avoidance of levy before Betfair was even founded? "I will make a promise today that if the BHA and the British government make th...

No, it's not Robert Nason, the former CEO of Racing Victoria, who has recently resigned from Tabcorp and moved onto Telstra, oft nominated for the most stubborn company in Australia, it's Dr Friedhelm Repnik claiming that match-fixing would never occur if German citizens were only allowed to bet via his company. Challenge to Baden-Württemberg Monopoly Rejected The Chief Executive of Germany’s Baden-Württemberg Lotto company, Dr. Friedhelm Repnik, has called on the government to close illegal betting shops and step up the fight against European online betting providers, suggesting that the recent match-fixing scandal in German football is the result of such ‘uncontrolled’ betting. Repnik’s comments followed a ruling last week by the Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg, in an appeal against a cease and desist order issued against private betting shops which allegedly brokered sports bets for betting companies licensed in Gibraltar and Malta. It's not the European-licen...

In Australia, the three main zones for corporate bookmakers are the Northern Territory (home of Centrebet, Sportsbet, Sportingbet, IASBet and numerous others), Tasmania (home of Betfair Aus) and the ACT (home of Sportsalive). When I say home, it's at least where their servers are based and a handful of staff - most have marketing and other departments based in Melbourne or Sydney. These three regions, two territories and Australia's smallest state, have little industry to speak of and need businesses in their region for employment, taxes etc. And they also have no deep-seated allegiance to TABs like the bigger states such as Victoria and New South Wales. Internet bookmakers in NT welcome tax change Tasmania recently threw the cat amongst the pigeons by scrapping the local tax on corporate bookmakers and adopting a $250k annual flat fee, a very attractive prospect for major firms turning over hundreds of millions per year. This was brought on by Betfair's five-year licence b...

No surprise here, if Hills decided to go, it was 1.03 that Ladbrokes would go too, despite the Magic Sign running a big 'Bet British' campaign within the last 12 months. The website only made £55m last year so they have to run off to Gibraltar and dodge tax and levy. Ladbrokes.com to relocate to Gibraltar I can't see myself ever working for a big company again, I'm too much of an idealist. If you've read my blog for a while, you'll be aware I'm currently studying an MBA. Corporate greed really shits me. If this was a case of remaining viable, then fair enough but it has nothing to do with it. Hills and Ladbrokes are deserting the UK for, in the words of that Nationwide ad, 'have more bubbly for the shareholders'. They're not the only ones though...

It will be announced today that internet operations of one of Britain's biggest bookmakers are being switched to Gibraltar in a measure to reduce tax paid from their financial statements. This will not go down well with the UK government who will lose out on a lot of tax revenue, nor the British racing industry which may suffer a significant reduction in levy payments. And if Hills go, will Ladbrokes do the same? Or Coral, or Betfair....? Odds shorten on William Hill move offshore Looks like a rather big loaded gun is being pointed at the Chancellor demanding change in taxation rates...

bwin have been hammered for closing accts and poor customer service over the years. They even have a rule buried deep in their T&Cs prohibiting accounts from employed at other firms. But this one has to take the cake. The punter wins €2000 and then the bookmaker says 'sorry, we shouldn't have offered these bets to you in the first place'. There's no comeback for this. The punter has done nothing wrong, and bwin have remote staff based in Australia trading live on AFL and NRL matches. If that is not deliberately targetting Australian clients to bet in-running, then I don't know what is. Conveniently hiding behind rules to suit themselves, they know damn well what they are doing is wrong, but also that the Australian government will never prosecute a firm based overseas anyway. Every UK bookmaker offers betting in-running to Aussies, the only firm who restricts is Betfair because they hold an Australian licence. read the thread from OLBG - bwin shafts punter Pure ...

Yesterday's Racing Post had a two-page spread about how British bookmakers are handling the economic downturn, in particular, if they are looking to minimise tax and levy by heading abroad. Naturally they can't move their shops abroad, but other functions such as internet and sportsbook operations could head to Gibraltar or other territories with much lower tax burdens. - BetFred recently transferred its internet sportsbook to Gibraltar, where it already based its casino operation. - Victor Chandler has been in Gibraltar for a decade and hasn't changed. - Stan James recently shut down a UK call centre and transferred operations to Gibraltar, where much of their business had operated before the abolition of betting duty. - Betfair have had major operations in Malta for several years, and all exchange bets placed by non-UK and non-Aus/NZ residents are processed via those servers, as well as multiple bets and all poker, casino and gaming transactions. - Hills and Corals are no...