In the greyhound column from Mark Wallis comes this proposal from Mark as to the way forward to increase prize money for the sport !!
~ "This Wednesday at Coventry Stadium (7pm) the first AGM for over 13 years will be held for the GTA and Rick Holloway the newly elected Chairperson will speak his mind on the way forward in the future for all Professional Trainers. A new committee will be formed of up to six Trainers with a position to be left open for when he allows all non professional trainers to join the GTA .
Iff anyone out there is interested in joining the committee they need to e-mail Rick (
[email protected]) and put their nomination forward. It would be nice to see a spread of trainers from across the country and both open and graded trainers would be ideal.
I have agreed to put myself forward to try and help though with our kennel's busy schedule I'm limited to what I can do.
I hope there are people out there that can help who have the time as we can, with a bit of unity, make a real difference.
One of the most urgent appeals Rick and the newly formed GTA Committee will make to the GBGB and the BGRF when all is sorted will be a raise in prize money across the board.
That means every track has to, say by January 1st 2013, increase the prize money levels by between 5 - 10% in all races - opens, graded and bags racing. For example if Romford was to raise its prize money by 10% on a standard Monday card where their total prize money for the night is around £3,500 then its only another £350 to find, if it was a standard meeting at Mildenhall on a Friday night where the total prize money is around £800 then it has to go up by another £80, when you think about it it's not really a lot to ask for.
The first thing the GBGB and BGRF will say is where is the money going to come from because we all know the promoters don't want to pay more than they have to. Well the answer is a long one but my thoughts are this.
For years the bookmakers have told us that our industry only provides a small percentage of betting turnover in their 10,000 shops making us feel grateful for what we get and horse racing produces a much larger percentage enabling them to have a huge compulsory levy while greyhound racing only gets some crumbs voluntarily given by the bookmakers.
Years ago horse racing would account for around 67% of the market and greyhound racing about 23 % with the other 10 % coming from sports betting. In a recent survey this has dramatically changed and horse racing now is only responsible for around 30% of the turnover with greyhound racing not dramatically down at around 18% while sports betting is up to over 15 %.
It's now clear that nearly 40 % of their turnover comes from the gaming machines that produce high jackpots and ultimately high stakes and huge profits for all the bookmakers shops. Why o why anyone plays these is beyond me but it is well known that punters are queueing up to put their money in.
Here to me is the key, these machines are only allowed to be in the shops by law if there is live content being shown as well and of course with horse racing not being able to produce wall to wall coverage and other sports either not viable or too expensive to screen what do they rely on to give them a service?
Yes of course greyhound racing, a cheap and popular quick fix for occasional punters that allows the shops to open at all hours thus giving them the chance to pack the punters in playing these gaming machines.
This in my opinion gives greyhound racing the right to say we are entitled to more money which should go directly into prize money alone.
We all know why the powers that be that run our sport won't ask for more and that's because it's the bookmakers that hold the power, crazy crazy!!
The only thing that we could possibly do to change this is by saying,
'this is not right and all practitioners namely trainers,owners and breeders are withdrawing the product until something is changed'.
I'm pretty certain this would have the desired effect but to do this we need unity amongst all trainers, 'OVER TO YOU RICK!
update BTD
Benny view ..
The bookmakers (High Street and Online) have become large casino's and most have overseas accounts to avoid tax ~~
Yes Marks right, when saying ,
Yes of course greyhound racing, a cheap and popular quick fix for occasional punters that allows the shops to open at all hours thus giving them the chance to pack the punters in playing these gaming machines.
However, if government took more action and tax from these machines, as reported in a TV documentary about how bookmakers home in, opening more shops in deprived areas, just to get the 'kids' to spend whatever money they have playing these machines !!!
Someone in government has to look at bookmakers shops and how they make their turnover along with how they pay tax !!
Not only is it a licence to print money with these machines, it's free licence to NOT improve prize-money for both horse racing and greyhound racing ~
Both these sports are what made bookmakers the giants that they are today, but don't think they will have any remorse or worry about that !!
As long as they have the machines, that have now made them into casino's, they have the monopoly to print money ~
Bookmakers and Cameron's government don't care, they are like 'Grave Robbers' and 'Gangsters' to the dying sport of greyhound racing !!
Good luck Mark, but don't hold your breath where bookmakers and this government are concerned ..
Bennythedip2