Sport is made for betting

Sad news today of an Australian sports bookmaker going bust. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) website shows that liquidators have been appointed for SportsAlive. Should SportsAlive have adhered to their licensing conditions, specifically the one below, then all should be fine for punters. However, it sounds like a few guys have been slow paid for a while (this year's not the first time they've had cash flow problems) so it may be that one of them got fed up with it and called in the lawyers. Staff apparently hadn't been paid for a fortnight either. 4. Segregated Bank Accounts 4.1 A sports bookmaker must, for the purposes of the sports bookmaking business, maintain a segregated sports betting bank account for the purpose of betting monies received. For full details of the ACT legislation, where SportsAlive were licensed, click here . This is a critical test of the strength of Australian bookmaking regulations. Hopefully it won't be ...

Western Australia, after copping a caning from the courts over trying to ban Betfair, has now reluctantly agreed to include a gross revenue deal in their racefield fees legislation. Every state now has to introduce some form of fee legislation, as they get charged by every other state for it, with the breakdown of the old gentleman's agreement which let the TABs bet on each other's product in a free contra deal. WA are in the position if being a net importer of racing product, so they are going to have to cover the shortfall somehow. Racing NSW are currently in court doing battle with Betfair and Sportsbet over their attempts at imposing a turnover-based fee, while Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania all went with fees on gross revenue. Victoria, the premier racing state in Australia, set their fee at 10% for the year rising to 15% during the prestige spring carnival. Sounds justified to me. South Aus went with 10% as well. Western Australia to apply retrospective race field...