gold circle and phumelela put this in your pipe and smoke it

instead of begging punters not to play open bets with bookies DO SOMETHING LIKE HOLLYWOOD HAS DONE FOR THEIR INTERNET PUNTERS AND THAT IS CREDIT DEPOSITS OF UP TO 10GRAND WITH 15 PERCENT ..so you deposit 2000 rand into your internet account and that evening they credit you with 300 rand..offer until feb 6th..i have said it before owen heffer is extremely innovative in the way he runs hollywood and he puts back plenty in the game via owning horses and sponsorship AND IF HE WAS CO OPTED ONTO THE GOLD CIRCLE BOARD WOULD MAKE A HUGE CONTRIBUTION TO THE FUTURE OF RACING..INSTEAD of fighting him embrace him for the future of racing..

agree agree agree

I have never been anti or pro bookmakers, it's my preference to lose my money to the tote sometimes and to bookmakers other times.

What I love the most is I have a choice.

These cretins have decided I MUST lose my money to them on the tote. I lose plenty to horseracing as a breeder, punter, owner. If they want it ALL, I will give them none!

AND they want it all for stakes as if they feeding the poor!

In fact, from now on...ALL to Hollywood Open bets...f@#k'em! Will empty my tote accounts forthwith.

its good for the bookie and its good for me the punter..have spent millions on tote turnover in the last 30 years and never been bought a hot dog..my days of owning are almost over so i am a punter ..why must i support tabgold when i get a far better service from hollywood..you want to get increased stakes then look for sponsors and start with betfair who are good enough for sponsoring millions into australian and british racing but not sa racing..

I talk as an owners, and therefore agree with Catsmug. Bookmakers can start changing my opinion by showing me that all their bets are taken "On the book" as opposed to "Off the book". I believe that all bets at Betfair is "on the book" and therefore easy to control.

Cut the Tellytrack feed to Bookmakers and refuse them access to any horseracing information. Let them now provide their own show, and let's see if they can still offer you the huge odds and all the free meals.

Sorry Cat - I have always respected what you state, but on this I must disagree. If P and GC had a mind like the folks at Hollywood they would be 100% further than they are now. Let me tell you why and I hope the clever folk at the operators read this.

I recently listened to my conscience and followed the advices of yourself and the RA advert and went to make a deposit into my Tabgold account. In fact I did it twice purely as an exercise. And the results were:

1. An internet deposit done on Wednesday at around 5pm. Only cleared on Friday. When I spoke to the B ..itchhh on the phone on Thursday she said that is the way it is. If the internet deposit is done after bank closing hours it will only clear the day after the next. I cannot accept that it takes 2 days to clear into my account and I cannot accept this attitude towards a paying customer.

2. I walked into my local tote to make a deposit. I was greeted by a drunk punter who was trying to break into the cashiers area. I found out that he had a dispute about his payout and I witnessed him first hand threatening to kill the cashier. The "manager" was scared out of his wits and did not react. I actually stayed on at the tote to see what would happen. I have dealt with far scarier people in my life time and was ready for whatever happened. My point is the dog hole totes with no security will never attract a new punter. I will never in my life time even imagine the likes of the folk at the Queens Plate ever putting foot near our sales points, our totes. Its a disgrace and needs to be fixed. Until then, Hollywood kicks arse and I will continue to spend my cash with them whether it be on the open bet or other. I work hard for it after all...

As a punter, I expect the owners to pressurize the authorities to make the difference and pull me back into tote punting.

Alcaponee said:

"As a punter, I expect the owners to pressurize the authorities to make the difference and pull me back into tote punting."

I am with you on this one, the outlets are in a shocking condition and needs to be upgraded by the operators.

This is pretty much an owners forum, and most (if not all) of the posts are concerned about the interests of racehorse owners.

I am an owner too, and I am happy to race my horses for the stakes that are offered. I have to be careful about training fees, and I have to be careful how much I am prepared to gamble to find out whether the horse is worth keeping.

And I'm prepared to do all this (ie lose) provided I can bet how I like.

I am fully aware that as an 'owner' the stakes I will compete for is 90% generated by those poor slobs who gamble far away from nice racecourse facilities, and mindlessly get ground up by the massive tote takeout for what must be a poor racing experience mostly.

I, on the other hand cover my loses of expense vs income as a horse owner by playing at close to 100%-105% at fixed odds. If you get the stretch off a 120% book and time it right then it's not difficult to run at below 110%.

And, the service I get from my internet accounts and bookmakers live is NOT what Al saw happing (see above) to the canon fodder whose systematic losses provides us the stakes. The RA press release just proves 100% that these owners who control the show, ironically referred to as the "authorities" often, have no clue where their money comes from.

I was happy to see that my take on the Gauteng Owners (RA) press release was very similar to Troubleshooter's reading of it. So though they sound like reformed pimps regarding whores in their press release (hypocrites because they all play with bookmakers), perhaps they should reconsider their holdings in their brothel as a matter of principle.

---

PS
It occurs to me that the owners of the brothel in question , is in fact P & GC and not the RA, so my criticism is completely miss placed, even though the RA does benefit from the proceeds.

Jack Dash, in an earlier posting I asked bookmakers to change my point of view by showing me that all bets taken by them are taken "ON THE BOOK" and not "OFF THE BOOK". This is not the first time that I have asked this question or made this statement. Not one single bookmaker has ever replied to this question/statement.

I trust that you and anybody else understand what I am saying, and ask you, if I was right, would you still see this matter in the same light.

This would mean that not all bets taken by boomakers attract the deduction that is their contribution to the racing product. I will give you a hint, that it is not the R 10-00 bets that bypass the system.

I guess there must be some truth to what you say. But if a punter and a bookmaker have that sort of relationship what can be done about it? They have to trust each other, especially the bookmaker will have to trust that punter as he will suffer the penalties and fines, and stealing tax from the government is, well, for the very brave. The bookmaker will have no recourse to collect if that punter defaults, and one complaint from that punter will bring the house down.

Obviously, the bookmaker can do it without the punters knowledge, but recently I see most punters getting either a ticket for a cash bet, or weekly and or monthly statements if playing on credit, so then all bets would be captured. And certainly take-backs from other bookmakers or interbet has to be captured to cancel out the tax. My opinion is that it is probably happening less often than you think.

Jack Dash, I assure you that it happens a lot more than you think, and for much bigger amounts than you think. It is always for a big punter that the bookmaker knows well, and is on credit.

Now put those amounts through the system that they can contribute to the stake pot, and let's see where we are. The tote and a betfair type operation, where it does not allow for "OFF THE BOOK" type bets is the only options.

Off course Phum and GC are shooting themselves in the foot with shockingly bad tote outlets and service. This does not help.

Obviously you know more than you saying.

The problem for the bookmaker with those types of customers, is you lose them to someone else if you don't play ball. It's a bit like trying to collect income tax from a burglar, once they off the straight and narrow you not gonna get them to be a stand up citizen.

I disagree with you about Betfair, our market is too small and low-tech for Betfair to make any significant difference to stakes for owners (I take it that's your big concern too). Betfair can trade 400,000 pounds on one big race, R6,000,000. The biggest Betfair traders there are robots with vaste bankroles. I wouldn't expect betfair to be the saviour of racing here. The millions wagered here are by people who stand in queues, not sitting at home or Betfair Cafe's. And Betfair is a harsh playground where mistakes are punished quickly and properly even though it's a 100% environment. It might be ok to take a bet, but who is going to lay to 100% in our market, the jocks?

The bookmaker's main product is the win bet. I would guess that bookmakers hold very, very, very much more money than to tote win pool for many reasons including the bets are on credit. Anyone betting more than R1000 thinks they can beat the odds and wants to know the odds. The only time where the tote would take out the bookmaker is when it's a monopoly, and that's a dry biscuit. It may be nice for owners, but shitty for punters who are used to richer offerings as we have here.

I got a call from a friend who follows these posts. If you say off the book bets are a bookmaker problem, he pointed out that the incidence of tote sellers cancelling tickets and pocketing the bet is becoming rampant. He said that when the bet arrives the punter goes nuts, and in the cases he's witnessed, tote staff argue and then hand over complaint forms.

It's anecdotal, but just shows that were money is involved there's always some fiddle going on. I can't imagine off the book bets and leakage making adifference on stakes though.

Surely we missed the boat when casinos opened and suddenly 400% new gamblers were created from nothing. We went from having 100% of the gambling market, to being a 15% bit player, and our nearest rival is Bingo (true, look it up).

I believe if the industry wants to keep the R250 million for the stakes pot, better it just be nicer to the punter, else he'll start playing UK on Betfair on his cell phone and the lotto at Hollywood. At least I can buy my Sporting Post at Hollywood, who I am willing to bet spent more money sponsoring those races than the profits from laying small open bets to their customers. Perhaps GC & P should ask themselves WHY would a punter take an open bet from Hollywood when the tote is a few meters away....is it service maybe?

Jack, yes I know more than what I am saying. I specificaly hoped that bookmakers would reply and deny what I am saying. The examples that I have first hand knowledge about are for BIG amounts.

You say : "The problem for the bookmaker with those types of customers, is you lose them to someone else if you don't play ball"

All I am asking for is for the bookmakers to record these bets in the system where they will attract the normal 6% deduction. Those are the rules today, play by them.

I have no doubt that Betfair in SA is far to small, but what I like about their model is that I believe that all their bets are "ON THE BOOK" making it easy to calculate what contribution they have to make in terms of an agreement. They can not hide anything. Having said that, I also have no problem with any bookmaker that has a similar system, playing by the current rules as they are today.