The future for Tote pool betting on British tracks remains unclear as commercial negotiations continue to stutter between the biggest courses and the Tote’s new owners, Betfred.
Chester and sister racecourse Bangor have split from the other 28 tracks that come under the umbrella of Racecourse Media Group and withdrawn from discussions with Betfred.
Racegoers at Chester and Bangor will, from next April, have no access to an on-course pool betting operation. Instead, Data Tote will make a first venture into British racing by offering a fixed-odds starting price-based betting service to racegoers.
Under its previous management, the Tote paid no Levy on any bets placed on-course through the pools, but did pay commission to racecourses on bets taken and agreed to reinvest further profits back into the sport through sponsorship. However, that deal expires with the RMG tracks next March and the revised proposals, although unclear, are said to be less attractive.
In the meantime, Data Tote has understandably been busy courting some of those same courses.
“We’ve had some preliminary approaches from Data Tote and we are continuing to monitor the situation while the RMG negotiations are ongoing,” commented Wetherby racecourse’s chief executive Jonjo Sanderson, whose father, John, is a member of the RMG board.
“Speaking personally, I like the way that the Tote operates and I believe that our customers like it too, but it depends upon whether the deal is right for the racecourses.”
How the Data Tote betting service will operate are unclear, but it appears significant that the former Tote regional manager Tony May has recently been recruited to look after the new business.
Presumably Data Tote is offering some sort of guaranteed profit because otherwise a string of well-backed favourites winning could see the tracks taking a sizeable financial hit.
Furthermore, the prospect of racecourses relying upon less-popular big-priced winners to maximise profits from their in-house betting operations would be highly undesirable.
(from http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport )
