Sport is made for betting

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...

Racing NSW supremo, or should I say, head muppet, Peter V'Landys, has banked his reputation and the future of the NSW racing industry on winning the race fields legislation against Betfair and corporate bookmakers in Australia. The issue - paying for the right to use Racing NSW information to take bets on NSW racing. Nobody is disputing the fact that the body that runs the show deserves to be paid by companies making money from it. The issue is how much and what is fair. Australia has two main states of racing - Victoria and New South Wales. NSW might have a bigger population but their racing isn't on a par with Victoria. When Takeover Target won last weekend on Doncaster Handicap day, it was a feat worthy of being cheered on by 40,000 people at least. They didn't even get 20 thousand on Sydney's second or third biggest raceday of the year - pathetic. Racing Victoria sets the standard in Australia - better prizemoney, bigger fields, better crowds, racing not as dominate...

Same fool, same tired argument. Robert Nason, the muppet who can't handle the concept of competition, is at it again... Bookies bleed the bush What he conveniently fails to mention is the sponsorship now open to corporate bookies (at least in Victoria because NSW still has legislation or a contract banning it) which doesn't count in the funding pot, and the fact that these corporate bookies are actually some of the biggest customers of the TABs! If you simply cut off the corporates, it will not mean all the money goes straight across to the tote pool directly. Competition builds interest in the sport. Australia will never be a monopoly like Hong Kong. A better analogy would be New Zealand where prizemoney is pitiful and any decent horse or jockey moves to Australia. High takeouts means punters lose money quicker. If you bleed the punters dry, then they can't bet next week or next month. And that has to be worrying during a worldwide recession. When is someone going to hold ...