Global Symposium on Racing- Arizona

[Fartoomuch 1,376]

Interesting perspective from this forum and a darn good read Hope the RIU are sent a copy.

 

The first speaker at the University of Arizona's Global Symposium on Racing focused on two main themes that will continue on through the two-day event—sports wagering and integrity.

The keynote address Dec. 4 in Tucson, Ariz., titled "Integrity in the World of Commercial Sport," was delivered by Jack Anderson, a professor of sports law at Melbourne Law School who warned those in attendance about current and future issues to expect as sports wagering begins to widen across the United States.

Anderson said that while U.S. sports lead the way in the "commercialism of sport," they are "behind when it comes to integrity issues." Of those "integrity issues," he mostly focused on the fixing of results in sporting events.

How that relates to the horse racing industry, which has dealt with those types of issues for seemingly as long as horses have been racing, will continue to evolve as legalized sports wagering spreads to racing jurisdictions. Anderson warned integrity issues can drag once "mainstream" sports out of the general public's consciousness.

"You can easily slip from the mainstream if there are integrity threats around you," Anderson said. "And you can see it in other sports. Look at track and field and cycling post Lance (Armstrong) and the doping corruption. ... And look at greyhound racing, which is one of my favorite sports, and how it's slipped away. There is one track left in the greater London area, the heartland of the sport. I work in Australia and two or three years ago New South Wales attempted to ban the sport ... and now we hear about Florida. You can slip very quickly."

Another theme from Anderson's presentation was that the "threat always comes from within" and while outside influences can spur fixing or cheating in "episodic games," the action needs to be made by "an individual" who can "take control of the flow of a game. An experienced jockey can be able to get that horse in trouble."

Anderson also spoke to the lack of whistle-blowers in sports, including in racing.

"It's an important integrity point for you in racing. We try all the time to gain intelligence from the racing community to see what's going on, and one of the key things to do is the whistle-blowing factor," he said. "Sport does whistle-blowing very poorly. ... Because the community is quite small, it's difficult in a sense to promote whistle-blowers."

Later in the presentation Anderson touched on the integrity threat of money laundering in gambling. With a winning wager money can not only be cleansed but it can return more money for an extra profit. He even went so far as to say money laundering is the "No. 1 threat" to the integrity of sport.

"The process is very simple. We have international criminal syndicates that illicit profits from narcotics, et cetera, laundering money—as they've always done—through gambling," Anderson said. "And if the event is fixed in their favor, their hot money is freshly laundered and they make a profit. And that profit is then invested in their business. That's the No. 1 integrity threat for international sport—not doping any more. It's money laundering."

He said the key to combating those types of integrity issues is the sharing of data. That data can alert operators and regulators of red flags like irregular betting activity, but Anderson indicated some are apprehensive to share.

"They are very weary, quite rightly, of giving raw, commercial data back to sports bodies," he said. "Do sports bodies have the capacity to deal with that information, in terms of analyzing it and keeping it secure? What they've developed in the UK, and in France, and in Australia, is an independent national regulator—a betting integrity unit—that has the capacity to deal with that. And where those red lines are flagged, there's options. You can send it back to the sport, for a sport-specific investigation, or you can send it to criminal authorities."

The U.S. has been dealing with gambling's impact on sport for at least a century—from the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919 to the Interstate Wire Act of 1961—but Anderson stressed diligence as the industry evolves.

"You've done it before. You're going to have to do it again," he said.

Anderson wrapped up his presentation with the iconic photo of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston during their title fight in 1965.

"We are now almost certain that it was a fixed fight," Anderson said. "Liston took a dive. Ali didn't know about it, but Liston took a dive because he had gambling debts. If you don't protect the integrity of your sport—your bottom line, your sport will take a dive."

[GOM 1,017]

David Walker was one jockey. Poor bugger

[Leggy 4,090]

7 hours ago, poundforpound said:

“One influential jockey fixing a race”.....give me a Tui for fucks sake.

It’s very hard to fix a race, and you’d need at least three or four in on it......and we know how everything leaks out.....it’d be a secret for about a week.....it couldn’t happen, however, if it did it’d be orchestrated by controlling the tempo of a race in such a way that most runners can’t win, or in other words only one or two horses in the race can win.....and that’s where the RIU comes in, don’t they ? They’d never allow canter and sprint racing in NZ surely, would they ?

 

hahaha!

[Fartoomuch 1,376]

18 hours ago, poundforpound said:

“One influential jockey fixing a race”.....give me a Tui for fucks sake.

It’s very hard to fix a race, and you’d need at least three or four in on it......and we know how everything leaks out.....it’d be a secret for about a week.....it couldn’t happen, however, if it did it’d be orchestrated by controlling the tempo of a race in such a way that most runners can’t win, or in other words only one or two horses in the race can win.....and that’s where the RIU comes in, don’t they ? They’d never allow canter and sprint racing in NZ surely, would they ?

 

I defer to your expertise in potential Race Fixing Leo but i thought the Money Laundering part was a more significant one.

[Fartoomuch 1,376]

 

 

Sports Betting Not 'Golden Goose' for Racing

Challenges of regulation, operation provide complex issues for the horse industry.

At any conference, symposium, or gathering of executives in any industry, certain terms, jargon, and buzzwords can permeate the topics discussed.

The word the morning of Dec. 5 at the University of Arizona's Global Symposium on Racing in Tucson, Ariz., was "golden goose."

 

The term referred to the potential impact of legalized sports wagering on the horse racing industry, and the panel of speakers in a discussion titled "Sports Betting: Coming to a Jurisdiction Near You?" largely dispelled that notion. There was even a mention of the goose getting killed.

The consensus from a trio of experts on the topic—Chris Krafcik, managing director (political and regulatory markets) for Eilers & Krejcik Gaming; Kate Lowenhar-Fisher, a gaming lawyer in Nevada; and Richard McGuire, executive director at Sportech—said sports wagering is in fact not a "golden goose" and warned of the double-edged sword it might wield on the racing industry.

"Be aware of the opportunity and threats to your business," McGuire said. "Unless you grasp that threat, and engage with it, you'll run into a lot of problems, quite frankly. ... Sports betting, as we all know, is here. I believe it's the single greatest opportunity for many of you in this room, but it's also the single greatest threat to your business going forward."

Unlike pari-mutuel wagering and slots, where takeout is all but guaranteed, sports wagering is not a guaranteed money earner on any day, in any month, or in any year.

"The term 'golden goose' and the pie-in-the-sky kind of discussion about sports betting in the United States—the economics of a sports book are not a mystery," Lowenhar-Fisher said. "They have a lot of history and evidence about how a sports book can earn money in a regulated marketplace and how a sports book can be murdered because of unreasonable taxes, fees, and so forth.

"In Nevada the sports books are an amenity to our patrons. They're not a money maker—never have been. And I'd argue a lot of sports books in the United States are pretty efficiently run."

 

If efficiency is key to running a profitable sports book, those on the panel stressed the importance of tax rates and fees that do not cut too far into slim profit margins.

"There are basic things that kill profitability in the sports book arena, because it is a slim-margin business that requires a lot of art and not a lot of science," Lowenhar-Fisher said. "If you have taxes and fees that exceed the Nevada model, you might be in trouble. If you have taxes and fees that are levied on handle rather than revenue or win, you're likely to have a problem."

McGuire went on to say that excessive taxes on sports betting would eventually lead customers to illegal betting, which in this scenario would have less vigorish (takeout from winning sports wagers).

"As soon as you overtax, you lose your market share, and it's very easy to tax so many people, but a tax on turnover clearly affects the odds," McGuire said. "The mass market participants will either bet less or, more likely, will head to the illegal markets."

While the perils of sports wagering for racetracks may come from a potential for lack of profitability, the good news for track operators, according to Krafcik, is that they are uniquely positioned—along with other already lawful gambling establishments—to bring in new customers to their facilities.

"Without exception, land-based incumbents, such as casinos or racetracks, are being given exclusivity for sports betting operations, making them the newly regulated industry's de facto gatekeepers," Krafcik said.

 

Krafcik also talked about potential "friction" based on revenue sharing between racing and sports betting in certain jurisdictions, most notably California.

"In many states there will be friction between sports betting operators and racing on the question of revenue sharing," Krafcik said. "We further anticipate friction, particularly in states like California, where racing enjoys special political clout. That could slow or even stall the development of sports betting."

Krafcik wasn't the only speaker to bring up challenges in California. In a later panel titled "Sports Betting: A Friend or Foe in the New Era of Sports and Gaming Competition?" Scott Daruty, an executive with The Stronach Group, identified Maryland (where The Stronach Group owns three racetracks) as a state that could work well for sports wagering, but did not express the same confidence in states like Florida and California. He labeled them "question marks."

"California is a very difficult state to handicap, because there are a lot of conflicting and competing interests," Daruty said in reference to gambling institutions like racetracks, tribal casinos, card clubs, and the state lottery.

With so much yet to be decided in so many different states, whether racing will ultimately benefit from the widespread legalization of sports wagering remains unknown.

"There is no consensus yet about whether racing will widely or more narrowly benefit from sports betting revenue sharing," Krafcik said. "Some states, such as Delaware, require revenue sharing from sports betting to tracks, and some states don't."