Racehorse TALK

Call for UK racing to buy Tote

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29 June
Racenews UK

Horse racing has no alternative but to try and buy the Tote, new ROA President Paul Dixon told the association’s annual general meeting on Thursday in England.

To fail to do so would result in the industry losing “a huge opportunity to influence the future finances of the sport”.

The inevitable consequence would be that the Tote would be sold to a bookmaker.

Racing had to accept that it would have to pay the full market price, said Mr Dixon as he took over the ROA presidency. “The barrier of State Aid appears impenetrable,” he concluded.

Could the Government be successfully challenged over its right to sell the Tote? “From all the legal opinion I have seen, I doubt it,” said Mr Dixon.

As to whether the business, once purchased by the racing consortium of owners, racecourses, Tote management and Lloyds Bank, would be viable, he said: “Nobody is disputing that it is a big ask but, as a businessman, my judgement is that it can be done.”

The ROA President said the tough, Government-imposed Non-Disclosure Agreements restricted public discussions of the issues, but he expected these would be relaxed soon.

In his speech, he questioned the bookmakers’ tactics in their dispute with Turf TV which is challenging the bookmaker-owned monopoly of SIS and the BAGS service of broadcasting pictures into betting shops.

“Let there by no doubt that this dispute has important consequences for owners,” said Mr Dixon. “The bookmakers are doing their level best to link the dispute to the Levy.

“They are arguing that, because they will be forced to buy in two picture services at a greater cost, this should in some way reflect on what they pay to the Levy.

“I say this is rubbish. The Levy has nothing to do with their costs; it is paid on their gross profits on British racing.”

While he believed that racing’s case on the Levy was watertight, he added: “History has taught us about the ingenuity of bookmakers when their backs are against the wall and there will be nothing safe about the unfolding events over the next year.”

He was, nevertheless, keen to acknowledge the future benefits that would spring from a better relationship between racing and bookmakers, but underlined the “madness” of a situation where the sport answered every demand of bookmaker and racecourse so that it resulted in ever more thinly spread levels of prize-money.

“As an owner of more than 40 horses, my natural instincts are to want as many running opportunities as I can get,” he said. “Such are the sentiments of most owners, but I believe the time has come to say enough is enough. Racing should be prepared only to continue to load on fixture after fixture if there is a corresponding increase in what the betting industry is prepared to pay.”