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...

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...

Today's article on the Press Association wire highlights how desperate they are for cash as their levy shrinks.... Levy Board to consult over exchanges The Levy Board has begun a consultation process relating to the issue of whether certain users of betting exchanges should pay levy on their activities. While this sounds logical enough, it's completely pointless. This has been examined over and over. Anyone that tries exclusively laying on Betfair won't be living off it. Bookmakers can't do it on-course with higher margins, so how is someone at home going to do it when the prices are always better? Sure, you can lay something they mightn't be able to lay on course, but when you have to lay 5/2 rather than 7/4, that's hardly going to be profitable in the long run. The two types of Betfair customer who do make money on racing are the new types - ones which aren't taking anything away from traditional betting revenue streams, because they simply weren't the...

Yesterday it was Racing NSW expecting punters to allow them to install monitoring software on their laptops if they take them on-course to trade. Today it's British racing's representatives on the Levy Board asking bookmakers to pay up to 76% more to cover racing. Betting companies should be paying for the right to field on British racing, I do not dispute that, but let's be practical about it. The biggest names in the industry are doing all they can to avoid tax and levy, so the industry decides to ask for nearly double the current amount? They have rocks in their heads. Sure you need to start with a big 'offer' as a starting point for negotiation, but it's rather obvious there is no wish for negotiation here, just a demand. Racing betting turnover, as a percentage of business for bookmakers is going one way - DOWN. Betting companies (if I say bookmakers out of habit, I do mean for the term to cover exchanges, totes and bookies) are making bigger profits, but o...

Unlike some of their rival bookmakers who have headed offshore to avoid paying tax and levy, Sportingbet have chosen to make a voluntary Levy Board payment for the upkeep of British racing, beginning next year. From the Racing Post: Chief executive Andrew McIver, whose company is sponsoring a £50,000 four-year-old hurdle at Cheltenham on Saturday, said yesterday: "We're delighted to demonstrate our support of the British racing industry by committing to a voluntary payment of the levy, which equates to the statutory payments [ten per cent of gross profits] we would make if we were based in the UK. The figure is expected to be around the £250k mark. Obviously there is something in it for them, wanting to add credibility to their sponsorship of various races and the Racehorse Owners' Association awards night they have agreed to sponsor for three years. Other firms paying a voluntary levy fee include Betfair (assume because they weren't covered in the original legislation...