Sport is made for betting

After a few attempted rorts in rugby league and a few plunges based on leaked team information, the major Australian sports, backed by a few clueless politicians and media desperate for a story, have proposed clampdowns on exotic bet types. Now we all hate match-fixing in sport, don't get me wrong there, but invariably these shenanigans are restricted to betting via illegal bookies, where there is no audit trail for investigators to pick up. Legal betting outlets don't drop the ball very often. At the first sign of suspicious betting, alarm bells go off and word spreads like wildfire. The accounts in question are marked forever and the total exposure involved is usually only a few grand - less than they'll get out of the PR value of the ensuing story! Andrew Twaits says tighter controls on online poker is necessary *snipped* Sportingbet Australia chief executive, Michael Sullivan, called yesterday on professional sports under the Coalition of Major Professional and...

Sportsbet, the original sports bookmaker in Australia, was set up in the 1980s by a roguish chap called Bryan Clark. He eventually sold it around 2001 to a firm with suspicious overseas betting links, and pressrue from regulators and bank managers forced them to sell. Enter Matthew Tripp with a $250k cheque in 2005. Six years later and he's rolling in it. Tripp's big punt on Sportsbet pays off WHEN Matthew Tripp paid $250,000 for Darwin-based bookmaker Sportsbet in 2005, it was on the edge of bankruptcy and had just eight staff. Just six years later, Tripp is close to finalising a sale to Irish bookmaker Paddy Power in a deal that values the company at $338 million and will net him about $50m. "We had one IT guy and a couple of phone operators and that was Sportsbet," Tripp says of the business he took over. Since then, the company has grown to employ more than 250 staff, some 40 of whom are based in the Northern Territory, where bets must be struck under th...

After initially buying a majority share of leading Australian bookmaker Sportsbet, the successful Irish firm has decided to acquire the remaining shares and take full control. Paddy Power to buy out Sportsbet Irish bookmaker Paddy Power has agreed to buy the remaining shares in Australian betting company Sportsbet, giving it full control of the group. Paddy Power will pay 132.6m Australian dollars ($133m; £86.2m) for the 39.2% stake that it does not already own. Paddy Power first bought 51% of Sportsbet in 2009. The overall buyout, which increases its exposure to online betting in Australia, is expected to complete by the end of February 2011. . . Patrick Kennedy, Paddy Power's chief executive, described Sportsbet as "a cracking business".

The panic and hyperbole after the Federal Court overturned the NSW racefields legislation case in favour of Racing NSW has been ridiculous. Trainers threatening to move states (from the richest state of racing in Australia to one which has been a basket case for many years, but might just get its hands on a huge wad of cash to piss up against a wall), owners' associations calling for the heads of Racing Victoria for carrying out sound business practice called negotiation rather than wasting years and millions of dollars in court and various Tabcorp press releases handed to their mouthpiece newspapers, particularly the Daily Telegraph, spouting all sorts of crap regarding product fees applying to other sports . Tabcorp, the bed partner of Racing NSW, which somehow manages to cop an exemption from paying the local racefields fees (due to the fees it pays to the government and racing industry under the terms of the privatisation), outrageously also gets exemptions from paying a produc...

As Racing NSW fights desperately to hang onto its ridiculous racefields legislation based on turnover tax and discriminating against competitive operators, Racing Queensland have seen common sense and elected to follow the Victorian model. One-horse maiden against corporate bookies RACING NSW, the men and women who would run racing in Australia (and thank God they don't), has been further marginalised in the battle of philosophies on how best to make all the sport's stakeholders pay their way. The new ruling body of greyhounds, trots and thoroughbred racing in Queensland has struck an important agreement with corporate bookmakers on how to collect fees for using the state's race fields. And it is not the one that Racing NSW has spent a fortune in court fees to establish and defend. Racing Queensland has fallen into line with Victoria and other racing jurisdictions which use a gross revenue formula to collect product fees. The Racing NSW v Betfair and Sportsbet app...

The various appeals over the initial verdicts between Betfair and Racing NSW, and then Sportsbet and Racing NSW, over the racefields legislation fees will be heard this week. How long it will all take I'm not sure, but a piece of free advice for Peter V'Landys... start clearing out your desk!

Sportingbet started the trend by purchasing No1 Betting Shop from Vanuatu and then moving them to Darwin, Paddy Power got into the act by snapping up Sportsbet and IAS, and then Centrebet started preening their feathers in public trying to woo as many prospective buyers as they could. Anecdotal evidence suggests that several other Australian firms are available to buy, as most of the original owners are approaching retirement age. BWin, William Hill, Ladbrokes, 888 and others were mentioned as prospective suitors for Centrebet but it all seems to have gone very quiet lately. BWin have tied up with Party Gaming which should keep them busy plus neither are shy about attracting Australian customers despite laws against online casino and poker operations; William Hill's online division is 29% owned by Playtech, another company with fingers in many bingo, casino and poker pies which reach Australia either organically or by targetted marketing; Ladbrokes are still involved in the bid f...

The time of the most stubborn and incompetent racing administrator in the world is coming to an end. Defiantly, he still refuses to believe that a court could possibly rule against him and his policies which were proven in court to be discriminatory, and thus illegal. NSW Racing is being crippled by the amount of ridiculous legal fees this bozo and his board are wasting on cases they simply cannot win. Contrast this rhetoric as dictated to TABCorp and Racing NSW's mouthpiece, the Daily Telegraph, with this analysis from Bill Saunders , an industry analyst who actually understands the principles of law and negotiation. The Punters' Show on Racenet had an excellent interview with Andrew Twaits on the subject. Finally the industry that V'Landys supposedly lives and breathes for has had enough, a vote of 'no confidence' in V'Landys and the Racing NSW board is set to be put forward at next week's board meeting . Leading NSW trainer Gai Waterhouse said "It ...

Yesterday's decision doesn't seem to have decided much - Betfair will certainly appeal the verdict against them.Bill Saunders argues that their case was hampered by Racing NSW not releasing relevant information until too late. Betfair was in fact disadvantaged by its lack of knowledge of the rebate arrangement when preparing its statement of claim. Sportsbet, with its case being heard after Betfair, was able to amend its statement of claim accordingly. Racing NSW will almost certainly piss more money up the wall appealing against the Sportsbet verdict as well. One thing that will happen is that all NSW operators, including Tabcorp, will now be forced to pay the fees, which they conveniently didn't have to pay under the flawed V'Landys policy. There is no longer a threshold for payment and no mates' deals for the TABs - one policy for everyone, not just a tax on those evil interstate companies. The last point, re interstate companies, may therefore infringe the cons...

The rulings have been made in the Federal Court today and it ended up as a split decision: Sportsbet won the case against Racing NSW over race fields legislation, and specifically against a threshold which favours NSW betting operators. Racing NSW defeated Betfair on the right to charge a turnover fee which, in Betfair's view, discriminates against low-margin operators such as betting exchanges. The only statements in the press so far are the usual chest-beating 'this is obviously a decision in our favour' whether they won or not, so I'll wait until the smoke clears before writing an elongated rant about it.

First it was April, then May, now it's officially June. Race Fields court decision next month The protracted court action by two wagering operators against Racing NSW over rights fees is set to have its resolution next month. Racing NSW has been notified this week that Justice Perrem intends to deliver his judgment on the cases on June 16. Betting exchange Betfair undertook legal proceedings to challenge the NSW Race Field legislation, which came into effect last year and requires all wagering operators to pay a 1.5 per cent fee on turnover for the use of race fields. Rather naively I thought, Racing NSW last week released a strategic plan for the future dependent on them winning this court case. Surely that's prejudicial to the outcome, or it just makes Peter V'Landys a bigger target for ridicule if they lose the case? If V'Landys can hold his position if Betfair & Sportsbet win this case, then he should run for PM - completely unaccountable, can make ridiculous s...

It may not be Bwin after all, as I predicted a few weeks ago, but the news is out in Australia that several different UK suitors are sniffing around the pioneer of online sports betting, Centrebet. Centrebet rockets on takeover talks SHARE investors piled into Centrebet yesterday as three British gaming companies loomed as potential bidders to take over the listed online wagering and gaming company. ... Analysts said Centrebet -- which is 60 per cent owned by the family of its chief executive, Con Kafataris -- was a good fit for foreign companies wanting to get a stake in the Australian market ahead of expected deregulation. British operators Ladbrokes, William Hill and Sportingbet are the reported overseas suitors for Centrebet and some analysts believe the takeover price could reach $2 a share. The Productivity Commission recently recommended a swag of reforms thought to be favourable for growth in online sportsbooks and casinos in Australia. The Australian market is undergoing major...

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...

Rumours abound this morning about the demise of RacingOdds (.com.au), the bookmaking arm of leviathan, or should it be big-mouth, Australian punter Sean Bartholomew. The website has disappeared (although other Aus firms have recently been subject to DDoS attacks and are still having issues), but there have been grave doubts about the longevity of this business for a while, with the proprietor believed to have been looking for a buyer for some time. If it is just hacker problems, then it's poor publicity for the company not to immediately send out emails to all clients reassuring them the firm is still operating, as Sportingbet and Sportsbet did last month. Punter funds will be safe - that's the benefit of the tight licensing laws in Australia. Each bookmaker puts up a hefty security bond with their licensing authority, to be distributed to punters in the event of financial insolvency. It is quite possible that Bartholomew has simply given up on an unviable business and clos...

So Racing NSW was successful with the Federal Court in their demands to see some documents from Betfair, making it sound like Betfair had something to hide. Well, being a private company without the need to publish their accounts each year (which they do anyway), you could understand why they'd be reluctant to do so. After all, there are dozens of rival firms out there who would love to find out how it all worked so well. But Racing NSW's victory was rather hollow. Clutching at Straws What Racing NSW forgot to explain in its Bulletin, was that the discovery claim it was appealing against was one which asked for some 60,000 documents from Betfair, including material prepared well before its Race Fields legislation went to Parliament. Justice Perram disallowed that request on the basis that he could not see how such an onerous burden should be imposed on Betfair. The final request allowed by the Full Federal Court amounted to some 100 documents. The order was only permitted becau...

Snippets from the Aus financial wires.. Tabcorp share assessment Tabcorp's only NT wagering arm, Luxbet, set up to take on the likes of Centrebet and Sportsbet, isn't yet making money and the win rates aren't where they should be. But Luxbet has accrued 23,000 customers and Funke Kupper claims its brand recognition is up there with the likes of Centrebet. Funke Kupper is taking a “fight them on the beaches” approach to customer retention, especially in wagering. “It's really important we stand in the market place,” he declares. “We will take people on, even though it's not necessarily cheap for us.” The rumours were that Luxbet was set up with bottomless pockets in a concerted effort to take market share away from the likes of Centrebet, Sportingbet, Sportsbet, so that backs up the theory. Tote Tasmania may sell for A$300m next month Four companies -- Tabcorp Holdings Ltd., Tatts Group Ltd., U.K.-based Ladbrokes Plc and Greece’s Intralot SA -- are on the short-list ...

A publicly-listed company CEO is responsible to his or her shareholders and the board. Peter V'Landys, head of Racing NSW, leads a government-backed organisation and has no such issues with accountability. If he was out in the public sector, he'd been out of a job long, long ago. What an absolute goose. He has gone public on the Racing NSW website commenting about a letter from leading NSW bookmaker Robbie Waterhouse, just before the Racing NSW vs Betfair and Sportsbet case over race fields legislation and the inappropriate turnover-based fee goes to court. Rule 1 of legal cases - don't comment in the public domain just before the case is heard. You risk putting the judge offside by making dangerous assumptions, give the opposition chance to react and risk being held in contempt of court. Take a look at Bill Saunders' article - Racing NSW Rattled Never has someone so powerful had so little clue about the law or anti-monopoly regulations and glossed over the facts that t...

Paddy Power haven't taken long to put their stamp on the Australian market. Just a couple of weeks after buying 51% of the Matthew Tripp-owned Sportsbet, they have now launched a bid to takeover Mark Read's IASBet. Read's company have been on the market for months, most recently with a hostile takeover bid rejected from Centrebet. 'Chopper' is getting old and wants to enjoy his later years rather than watching his sons piss all his money up against the wall, which isn't as far-fetched as it seems. The IAS board have approved the deal of 60c per share (last traded at 50c, and was trading at half that price at the start of the year) and unaminously recommend it to all shareholders. Read the IAS announcement to the ASX here The Australian wagering landscape is changing rapidly and Paddy Power have well and truly gotten the jump on any of their UK/Irish counterparts.

This has been in the pipeline for a while but I was asked to keep quiet on it to protect my source. Paddy Power take control of Sportsbet Ireland's leading bookmaking firm Paddy Power, mooted to be a bidder for TAB licenses in Australia, has purchased a 51 per cent stake in Northern Territory-based Sportsbet. Racing Post reported that Paddy Power had paid an initial €27.2 million for the majority stake in the company established by the Tripp family. The tricky part here is that Sportsbet own nearly 20% of IAS, who are up for sale as well. It's all go in the Australian betting market at the moment. Sportsbet, based in Darwin, was the original sports bookmaker in Australia. It was founded in the late 80s by Bryan Clark who sold the business a decade later. It has since changed hands a couple of times before the Tripp group purchased it and improved it significantly. And now they've been able to cash in on their hard work. Paddy Power buys Sportsbet stake, shares rise It sound...

The IAS sale plans take another turn. After Centrebet had a crack with a hostile offer then had a ruling against them by the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) over releasing details of private discussions late last year, Sportsbet Pty Ltd run by Matt Tripp have purchased 10.15% of IAS shares. This announcement can be found on the ASX site under company code IAS. An interesting development, particularly as Sportsbet have been rumoured to be chatting to potential foreign partners. Just where will this one head?