This time next year will be the start of ROCK BOTTOM.......& race fields there after won't improve unless litters bred on an annual basis reach a mininum of 2200 imo. Remember, we were once breeding over 3000 litters annually for more than 20 years, before the bull$h1t started in 2015.

So for example, over the last 3 years (Aust wide) we have bred no more than 4700 litters in total.

That's 50% LESS (plus) compared to pre-2015 national averages & it's now showing we are in trouble, which everybody acknowledges.

Once MATURITY races stop (M5/M4/M3/M2/M1) which are holding meeting's together ATM, race meetings will suffer MORE because we only have 4700 litters coming thru, NOT 9000+ like now.....so maturity races will be halved at best creating less races, resulting in more cancellations in meeting's.

Do the sums. I'm very good a them.

P.S. One things for sure, 300m races are going to become normal for meetings that don't rate METO-MEETINGS (City).

Not really.

Back at the turn of the century (1999/2000) Thoroughbred foals numbered around 18,000 pa. More recently ....

2014/15 12,981
2015/16 12,771
2016/17 12,785

That's a 39% drop over nearly two decades.

From 1999/2000 to 2017/18 ....
Thoroughbred betting turnover increased by 118%.
Harness/Grey combined turnover increased by 174%.

Most of the latter figure was due to Greyhounds running more races and, in some cases, getting a better split from state governments. It would have looked even better had Greyhounds been getting their proper share of TAB commissions. Simultaneously, Thoroughbreds and Harness would have looked worse - ie they are partly subsidised by Greyhounds to this day.

At the gallops there has been some artificial inflation of prize money due to a partial sweepstake approach - eg The Everest and Magic Millions - ie not hard cash, just a book entry.

While all this has been going on Sports betting has gone from almost nothing to $11.2 billion in 2017/18. By comparison, Greyhounds brought in $3.3b.

In short, for a variety of reasons there has been a massive shift in patronage since 2000. In quality terms it has not done much good for Greyhound investors because the pie is now split a dozen ways, favourites are consistently over-bet and prices are far too volatile or pools too small. That's the one advantage the gallops have - because most of their pools are very large.

Sandro,

I agree - a huge boost and not seen since the days of Rex Mossop & co.

Bearing in mind that the 2018 Million came from Unclaimed Dividends and Ladbrokes (50/50), who is paying for ...

(a) the 2019 Million?
(b) the 2019 Ch9 promotion?
(c) the earlier Neds 280 promotion (and how much was it)?

I have seen no info on any of these.

PS: Could we get a bigger and better camera for these races? Maybe higher, too. 720m starts badly need enlargement.

"Keep on eye on TAB pools and see how much they have dropped. This is danger time."

Mate, once upon a time this would have worked but not now. The greyhound betting pie is now verging on a 50/50 split, TAB and Corporates. You can see the TAB figures but the other half remains a mystery until weeks or months later. TAB takings are a poor guide and are getting smaller by the day.

Equally, with the disappearance of national statistics (ex GA) for the last 3 or 4 years we can only guess at another key figure - the average field size. Historically, this used to range around the 7.5 or 7.6 area. Today, with all the small fields - many drawn that way, others due to scratchings - I hate to guess at how much that figure has declined.

In that climate, GRV has just told us that income went up by 4.9% in 2018/19 (that will be advance info, pending release of the annual report).

GRV offers no advice on how or why that rise occurred. I can't wait for that!

However, top of the list must be an assumption that there was a negligible effect from the smaller field numbers - ie any inclination to avoid Place or Exotic betting did not impact on the total. Wow!

My further assumption is that the thumb is now the dominant force - ie a quickie bet on a handheld device. Racing authorities and the betting houses would be able to clarify this but I doubt if they will.

A further assumption would be that the decline in average field quality - involving more T3 and Hybrid racing and low standard dogs - has also had no significant effect on betting.

All of which confirms that the industry is heavily reliant on mugs in pubs. That worries me.

As for more breeding, I know GRV is predicting a rise from the low levels of last year and before, apparently based on a projection from services recorded in 2017 and 2018. Maybe, maybe not? Whatever eventuates it has a long way to go before hitting pre-2015 levels and those of the 2000s.

What's completely missing is a general incentive for potential owners to dive into their pockets and buy pups. For that to happen we need promotions, excitements, love of the breed and so on. In other words, GAP x 100.

EXTERNAL LINK

2017 - 14,197 on the rise

The 14,197 figure was quoted in a speech in Asia by ARB and was an estimate only.

The published Fact Book figure (usually carefully audited) was 12,785, as I stated above. IE much the same as the previous two years.

Bruce

Victoria introduced a Wagering & Betting Tax from 1 January 2019. This replaces the Tabcorp arrangement.

This taxes the corporates for all bets placed from within Victoria. It means the wagering income drop by any move from TAB to 'corporates' gets addressed.

This means there are 2 components of any increase; that attributable to the new tax, and the general level of wagering. From what I have heard (which I cannot verify), the new tax offsets a recent declining wagering trend.

Unsure how this affects any split to greyhounds. Theoretically, it should be possible to distribute direct proportions to codes.

These days I have not been bothering to catch up on all the detail in each state so I stand to be corrected. As I see it, code income is now made up of ..

1. Tote sales commission which is overseen by state governments (as to the total) but may be divided up differently in line with agreements reached between the codes (as in NSW) and Tabcorp. The actual amounts/percentages vary according to circumstance in each state. Then add Tabcorp commission on its F/O sales, which are not covered by the same legislation.

2. Commission on corporates sales, which are agreed between the codes and the betting house and are related to approved access to copyright field lists.

3. The new Wagering and Betting tax, which is applied differently in each state but which is directed at betting which the state does not control ie from the corporates domiciled elsewhere and Tabcorp F/O (and Luxbet when it existed). Effectively, this serves to even out the playing field as previously the corporates paid nothing in state tax (NT excepted). Now they do but only for races within that state. Subsequently, some of that tax income is dished out to the codes by the government in various ways.

Not covered above are separate decisions or actions by governments such as the tax equalisation program in NSW where the state has progressively moved from a high tax regime to a competitive (ie Victorian) regime. Sadly, the rotten NSW Minister used spurious reasoning to assess the greyhound share at 10% of the total, rather than 13% as under the Tabcorp commission split, or greyhounds actual share of turnover of 20% to 22% or so. In effect, he thereby forced greyhounds to further cross-subsidise the gallops and trots.

Of course, all the above does not cover overseas betting houses which pay nothing to anybody and where the Commonwealth is still trying to install a system which can sustain the many difficulties imposed by the internet etc. (And also pre-internet when phone links to Fiji and Vanuatu organisations enabled illegal betting to flourish see Bob Hawke for one).

Another oddball is that the states started out assessing the new W/B tax on the basis of the bookies profit margin in each race ie if he lost he paid no tax. This nonsensical approach was also the basis of RVs previous dealings with the corporates as well as being the reason for the RNSW High Court challenge NSW sensibly wanted to assess commission on turnover rather than a third partys profits, a turnover dollar being the lingua franca of all racing and betting.

The upshot of all that is that general knowledge suggests that corporates collectively and Tabcorp now each have about 50% of the action, albeit they almost certainly pay different levels of taxation and commission. Since the corporates continue to gain market share and Tabcorp continues to lose share it follows that overall industry income is in relative decline. Apparently, it is not in decline in absolute terms in Victoria (see GRVs claim of a 4.9% growth during adverse circumstances), hence my query as to where the money is coming from. What else has changed?

Anyway, back to your post. The W/B tax is new. It did not replace anything. As to Tabcorp, it is unlikely to ever achieve growth under current circumstances because its greyhound pools are too small (and getting smaller) to sustain even ordinary bets. As to the corporates, since they are splitting up a similar sized pool a dozen ways, and knocking back bets they dont want, they are hardly able to act as a normal bookie might so they dont. Anyway, they are not bookmakers at all but simply financial manipulators having a lend of you.

Is grading the cause of major mismatches?

It seems that there are many more races where there is one short-priced favourite, so trainers tend to bail out, even if it means days off, particularly if their box draw is bad.

The problem looks to be worse with 6 dog maidens and aged prize money meetings. Hopefully these are behind us.

GRV did state that the dog numbers position would improve after August. From a race field perspective, it has got worse since August. (Unless it was referring to numbers for adoption).

Further to my 13 Oct post, I may owe you a partial apology.

I am still trying to sort out the many and varied columns in the GRV Annual Report but the problem emerges because of the difficulty of checking how all the commission splits were decided between the government, the three codes and individual deals done. That was then complicated by the handling of the W/B tax. It went in then out again.

Although both races and starters declined, turnover and revenue went up. That was due to higher income from corporates, which suggests they were paying in at a higher rate than the Tab. That puzzles me.

Somehow GRV profited from the swings and roundabouts. I'll get back to you.

Meantime, it is interesting that while GRV has only 179 Full Time Equivalent employees it has a CEO plus seven General Managers, each with a separate department. That seems out of whack.

Ross,

GRV also said it was great that 2018/19 was terrific for breeding because there were more litters than the year before. In fact, in round terms those numbers were about half what they were prior to 2015.

The scratchings will obviously be due to many factors - but we don't know what they are. But then we do not know the reasons for anything much, do we?