New FOB and Shutdown

[LightsOut 486]

It just goes from bad to worse. I went down to local bar to put a multi on, like most pub tabs service not that great and race sheets are  often not up. Meeting i want was not up on wall so I think use my phone to view TAB site and go to the first race to multi only to find no bet option numbers. Fixed odds are displayed on the race along side the tote odds and you have the tote meeting number up so why wouldn't you display the Option number?  You need a Jetbet number to sell tote bets and Betting Options to sell Fixed Odds, yes I know why I am I telling you this when its blatantly obvious.   Paddy Power and Australian Corporate bookmakers don't use option numbers as all customer betting is done on the net. TABCORP and NSW TAB's have Option numbers on races why because they have agency's and pubs like NZ where punters can bet and once again that's why Corporate bookmakers don't. They never designed the platform to have option numbers because they obviously haven't built a platform for a TAB and no one at the NZRB bothered to compare NSW and Victoria TAB's to see how they designed race betting details to keep both internet and venue betting customers happy. 50 million plus and you can't integrate a basic punting requirement. Just another reason why they should have gone with their commingling partner TABCORP who would have made sure that the simple basic tools were put in place for customers.

John Allen said the new betting platform would bring them up to speed with others overseas unfortunately he was obviously comparing it to a sloth.

The management of the NZRB has mirrored why Fletchers Building Company lost tens of millions - management and board members with no knowledge or understanding of the building Industry and any employee who did have were pushed out the door as they posed a threat to clueless senior management. 

Try going to a pub and asking the 20 year old there for racing option numbers, you end up just giving up.

Every retail company who has a physical store and is also selling online has product numbers and selling bets is no different. The Industry was told the NZRB betting platform was 10 years behind the rest well you can double that now. 

The head in the sand approach to complaints continues to alienate customers yet this new platform was going to double the customer base. They couldn't have got it more wrong.  

Plenty of room to advertise Betting Option numbers. I guarantee ask 10 punters whats missing and it would be a surprise if they didn't state the obvious.

 

 

     

 

[slam dunk 1,317]

I haven't followed this option argument closely simply because I thought those complaining were mistaken and the option numbers naturally had to be there. Isn't there a form at the TAB you fill in with the option number. So option numbers must be there how on earth could you operate a TAB without them. Lights OUT, rdytdy etc have you looked properly they have to be there.

[Trump 2,741]

Slam Dunk, I spent 10 min looking for the FO numbers. The Forms are on display but I couldn’t find the FO numbers to have a Multi. In the end I gave up and walked out. It should be made “easy” for people wanting to place a bet - not harder!

[High Sparrow 702]

I couldn't agree more with you all about what an unmitigated disaster this is everywhere you go. Obviously it wasn't tested beforehand and we were the guinea pigs. They probably learned this technique from the Windows10 launch. Oh let's try and see how many of the customers notice all the mistakes and then they'll report them back to us and we won't have to pay for expensive testing. We'll have built a $50m white elephant but let's not bother with seeing if it's fit-for-purpose until we launch it - and we won't worry about the possible turnover losses either because well they'd be bad for the industry we're actually tasked with helping - and we don't really want to mitigate the risks there because we're too busy telling everyone what a brave new world they now live in.  That's the usual way with the corporate greedies. Then when it fails - they run a PR spin campaign to tell you the sun is shining when it's pissing down with rain outside. I was talking with a trainer friend of mine from down south the other day and he told was saying he'd been hearing how good the new TAB site was. So I asked him who had told him that and he said "the TAB guys".  I said "Pardon, it's a dog's breakfast". I told him some of the stuff that had been going on from a punter's point of view and he was flabbergasted. I think the penny may have dropped that he was a victim of sugar-coating from the TAB. But the irony in this discussion was this:  For me, racing is a 53-year-old hobby but for him its his living and it's tough enough with the low stakes and owners who like the idea of racing a horse but fail to pay the bills - to have this stuff not sorted out completely 20 days after launch. C'mon Winston earn your pay as Racing Minister and do something constructive or are you too busy off on overseas junkets giving our hard-earned away to countries that are run by dictators?  Anyway, I'm with some of the other 'old timers' (and I use that in the sense of lengthy associations with racing) and I'm looking at other overseas options for a flutter and if they don't spark my interest then I'll probably just fold up my betting tent and forget about racing entirely. I know mistakes happen and teething problems are normal with website launches but this is more than that. This is arrogance from the top of the TAB tree - and if you want to save the tree Winston then you might have to lop off a few of the branches that aren't looking so healthy in order to save the whole (racing) tree. Because at the moment with these guys in control it's getting sicker by the day in every way.  Happy Punting people - I'm off.

[slam dunk 1,317]

32 minutes ago, Trump said:

Slam Dunk, I spent 10 min looking for the FO numbers. The Forms are on display but I couldn’t find the FO numbers to have a Multi. In the end I gave up and walked out. It should be made “easy” for people wanting to place a bet - not harder!

Ok I'll check out the local TAB. Now I did have the TAB intelligency bar set at the lowest level but surely I won't need to dig a hole to set it even lower.

[LightsOut 486]

slam dunk the local has the betting option slips are there but buggered if I could find any option numbers. I tried to be smart and used the Jetbet meeting number first eg 201 but that didn't work. That was an easy thing to do in the past but no longer, this was going to be more friendly user, I would hate to see how the NZRB treats their enemies if this is how they treat their friendly customers. Like you Trump I gave up and walked out just too frustrating. 

From story below - "The NZRB hopes to double the number of people who have accounts with the TAB and bet regularly from 90,000 to 180,000 over the next couple of years."

You can kiss that budget goodbye. You have to rely on a little more than hope when your a CEO.

It would also partner with Irish bookie Paddy Power Betfair, which would set the odds on international events and enter into a profit-sharing agreement with the TAB.

30 years the NZRB has been in operation pricing and trading sports you spend tens of millions on a new betting platform and give away much needed profit to an overseas Company. You obviously had little faith in your sports betting management team to do that.

But the primary financial goal of the partnership would be to improve the TAB's profit margins by between $12 million and $36m a year by preventing foreign punters from taking advantage of TAB misspricing

Good luck with that but unfortunately you won't be improving profit and the biggest misspricing wasn't a betting option but a betting platform 

Automated odds and more betting options a win-win, says TAB boss

Tom Pullar-Strecker05:00, Feb 26 2017

DADO RUVIC/REUTERS

TAB punters would likely get the same odds that gambling giant PaddyPower Betfair provides when they gambled on international sporting events.

Kiwi punters could get the chance to bet on tens of thousands more sporting and racing events through the TAB from August next year.

Gamblers are also likely to get the option to bet through the TAB on major political events, such as the outcome of British and United States elections.

The New Zealand Racing Board (NZRB), which operates the TAB, will meet in April to decide whether to licence an automated fixed-odds betting platform supplied by Britain's OpenBet.

CRAIG SIMCOX/FAIRFAX NZ

Racing Board boss John Allen says the racing industry has suffered from "serial under-investment" and needs more profits from the TAB to flourish.

It would also partner with Irish bookie Paddy Power Betfair, which would set the odds on international events and enter into a profit-sharing agreement with the TAB. The new fixed-odds betting system would take a bit over a year to put in place.

NZRB chief executive John Allen said the TAB was currently limited to offering no more than 5000 fixed-odds betting options on any one day, but Betfair offered about 100,000.

"I am not suggesting we are going to go from 5000 to 100,000, but it gives you an idea of the order of change that's available."

Allen hoped an expanded menu of betting options would stem the flow of Kiwi punters to overseas betting sites such as Betfair and Ladbrokes.

The NZRB hopes to double the number of people who have accounts with the TAB and bet regularly from 90,000 to 180,000 over the next couple of years.

But the primary financial goal of the partnership would be to improve the TAB's profit margins by between $12 million and $36m a year by preventing foreign punters from taking advantage of TAB misspricing.

The TAB currently calculates the odds it offers on events manually," Allen said.

"The challenge for us is when you are a manual operation, you can't move your odds as quickly as an automated operation.

"You risk being 'arbitraged' by people around the world who are looking for value, because they know odds offered by some bookmakers will have moved but your prices haven't."

An automated system would mean fewer opportunities for sophisticated punters to play off the TAB against other betting agencies.

"We want punters to bet with us because we give them a fair price. But we don't want to be taken for a ride, because every dollar we make in profit is a dollar that goes to the New Zealand [racing] industry," Allen said.

The TAB would be able to complement Betfair's betting menu by adding its own events, so it could for example offer a wider range of betting options than Betfair on local rugby matches.

"We are going to continue to control the betting offer made to our customers so we will still need members of our betting team to be involved in that," Allen said.

"We will keep control of the betting strategy and will continue to do the bookmaking for New Zealand sports products and it will be our decision which bits of the PaddyPower book and algorithms we take."

But he did not rule out job losses.

"A level of automation probably means we can grow the business quite significantly without any, or very little, additional investment in people."  

Political betting was a category the TAB was likely to be interested in, Allen said.

"It is unlikely to be a significant component of our business, but if people can't bet with us on those products then they are going to start betting with someone else."

Many online bookies used OpenBet, which meant a partnership with Betfair would not be not irreversible and could be unwound down the track, he said.

All of the TAB sports betting and an increasing proportion of its racing betting was fixed-odds, Allen said.

The other major form of betting is Tote betting, where the payout to a punter on a winning bet can rise or fall after they place their bet, to reflect the changing flow of new bets.

Overall, fixed-odds betting accounted for half of the $2.3b of bets placed with the TAB last year.

"Customers are preferring to have the certainty of fixed-odds," Allen said. "We need to be competitive in that space and at the moment we simply aren't."

 

[Phantom 494]

1 hour ago, LightsOut said:

slam dunk the local has the betting option slips are there but buggered if I could find any option numbers. I tried to be smart and used the Jetbet meeting number first eg 201 but that didn't work. That was an easy thing to do in the past but no longer, this was going to be more friendly user, I would hate to see how the NZRB treats their enemies if this is how they treat their friendly customers. Like you Trump I gave up and walked out just too frustrating. 

From story below - "The NZRB hopes to double the number of people who have accounts with the TAB and bet regularly from 90,000 to 180,000 over the next couple of years."

You can kiss that budget goodbye. You have to rely on a little more than hope when your a CEO.

It would also partner with Irish bookie Paddy Power Betfair, which would set the odds on international events and enter into a profit-sharing agreement with the TAB.

30 years the NZRB has been in operation pricing and trading sports you spend tens of millions on a new betting platform and give away much needed profit to an overseas Company. You obviously had little faith in your sports betting management team to do that.

But the primary financial goal of the partnership would be to improve the TAB's profit margins by between $12 million and $36m a year by preventing foreign punters from taking advantage of TAB misspricing

Good luck with that but unfortunately you won't be improving profit and the biggest misspricing wasn't a betting option but a betting platform 

Automated odds and more betting options a win-win, says TAB boss

Tom Pullar-Strecker05:00, Feb 26 2017

DADO RUVIC/REUTERS

TAB punters would likely get the same odds that gambling giant PaddyPower Betfair provides when they gambled on international sporting events.

Kiwi punters could get the chance to bet on tens of thousands more sporting and racing events through the TAB from August next year.

Gamblers are also likely to get the option to bet through the TAB on major political events, such as the outcome of British and United States elections.

The New Zealand Racing Board (NZRB), which operates the TAB, will meet in April to decide whether to licence an automated fixed-odds betting platform supplied by Britain's OpenBet.

CRAIG SIMCOX/FAIRFAX NZ

Racing Board boss John Allen says the racing industry has suffered from "serial under-investment" and needs more profits from the TAB to flourish.

It would also partner with Irish bookie Paddy Power Betfair, which would set the odds on international events and enter into a profit-sharing agreement with the TAB. The new fixed-odds betting system would take a bit over a year to put in place.

NZRB chief executive John Allen said the TAB was currently limited to offering no more than 5000 fixed-odds betting options on any one day, but Betfair offered about 100,000.

"I am not suggesting we are going to go from 5000 to 100,000, but it gives you an idea of the order of change that's available."

Allen hoped an expanded menu of betting options would stem the flow of Kiwi punters to overseas betting sites such as Betfair and Ladbrokes.

The NZRB hopes to double the number of people who have accounts with the TAB and bet regularly from 90,000 to 180,000 over the next couple of years.

But the primary financial goal of the partnership would be to improve the TAB's profit margins by between $12 million and $36m a year by preventing foreign punters from taking advantage of TAB misspricing.

The TAB currently calculates the odds it offers on events manually," Allen said.

"The challenge for us is when you are a manual operation, you can't move your odds as quickly as an automated operation.

"You risk being 'arbitraged' by people around the world who are looking for value, because they know odds offered by some bookmakers will have moved but your prices haven't."

An automated system would mean fewer opportunities for sophisticated punters to play off the TAB against other betting agencies.

"We want punters to bet with us because we give them a fair price. But we don't want to be taken for a ride, because every dollar we make in profit is a dollar that goes to the New Zealand [racing] industry," Allen said.

The TAB would be able to complement Betfair's betting menu by adding its own events, so it could for example offer a wider range of betting options than Betfair on local rugby matches.

"We are going to continue to control the betting offer made to our customers so we will still need members of our betting team to be involved in that," Allen said.

"We will keep control of the betting strategy and will continue to do the bookmaking for New Zealand sports products and it will be our decision which bits of the PaddyPower book and algorithms we take."

But he did not rule out job losses.

"A level of automation probably means we can grow the business quite significantly without any, or very little, additional investment in people."  

Political betting was a category the TAB was likely to be interested in, Allen said.

"It is unlikely to be a significant component of our business, but if people can't bet with us on those products then they are going to start betting with someone else."

Many online bookies used OpenBet, which meant a partnership with Betfair would not be not irreversible and could be unwound down the track, he said.

All of the TAB sports betting and an increasing proportion of its racing betting was fixed-odds, Allen said.

The other major form of betting is Tote betting, where the payout to a punter on a winning bet can rise or fall after they place their bet, to reflect the changing flow of new bets.

Overall, fixed-odds betting accounted for half of the $2.3b of bets placed with the TAB last year.

"Customers are preferring to have the certainty of fixed-odds," Allen said. "We need to be competitive in that space and at the moment we simply aren't."

 

John Allen: Stop Talking! That way people can still believe you have HALF a clue what you are doing....

 

[High Sparrow 702]

35 minutes ago, Phantom said:

Overall, fixed-odds betting accounted for half of the $2.3b of bets placed with the TAB last year. (John Allen's comment).

"Customers are preferring to have the certainty of fixed-odds," Allen said.  (Wrong John - only half of your customers prefer fixed odds and that shows in the betting figures you just quoted. The other half, presumably took the gamble that the tote odds might be better than the measly fixed odds on offer but now you want to take that away on some options and narrow their chances even further. It's called "gambling" for a reason John - perhaps you haven't quite grasped that yet - that punters are in the game of risk too - but they want it to be without feeling as if they are being screwed along the way or taken for "mugs". Wow this guy reminds me of the boss I had years ago who did a survey, found 71% of people liked a certain thing we were producing and then wanted to axe it under the understanding that "well 29% didn't like it."  Talk about trying to justify the unjustifiable. Wow, and these guys are in charge of multi billion dollar operations. Heaven help us.

 

[Red Rum 1,833]

Top person in racing was reported in the Herald to be begging for government money a day or so back, but 50 mill gone . Now it's starting to look like racing is that begger on street you see in big cities , you bung them few bucks and then you see them driving home in brand new Mercedes . Laughable really .Piss taking is another word for it .

[LightsOut 486]

Betting options explode with launch of new TAB website

Tom Pullar-Strecker16:50, Jan 07 2019

The TAB has turned on a new betting website powered by two of Europe's biggest betting giants that offers the opportunity to gamble on many more sporting events at better odds than it previously provided.

New Zealand Racing Board chief executive John Allen said the new service was a "game changer" that marked the dawn of a new era for the NZRB, which owns the TAB, enabling it to deliver "a more compelling betting experience". ( I think compelling needs to be replaced with frustrating) 

"We estimate this initiative alone will increase returns to the industry by $17 million to $19m in annualised profit, rising to approximately a $30m increase in net betting profit as a result of the change from 2021/22," he said in a statement.

Australian company Pagemaster said it might not be able to compile race results for newspapers owned by Stuff for a "couple of days" because the software it used to glean results from TAB's website no longer worked.

Pagemaster production manager Kate Bromley said the TAB had not given it any notice of the change.(no surprise there no one though about it)

NZ Racing Board spokesman Ian Long said some Spark customers had also experienced difficulties accessing its new website and app on Monday afternoon, though those issues had now been resolved.(resolved? he needs to check the dictionary on the meaning of the word)

The move was driven by fears the TAB was falling behind the services offered by overseas providers such as Ladbrokes and Paddy Power Betfair. *(was falling behind and now fallen off)

Although the TAB notionally has a monopoly on sports betting in New Zealand, it has been leaking business overseas as there has been nothing to stop punters instead turning to the larger overseas websites that provide a fuller service and have more scale.

The overhaul has been designed to stop that trend.(well it just increased) 

Irish bookie Paddy Power Betfair is now setting the odds that the TAB quotes for most international sporting events, though the Racing Board will continue to control the odds for local sports events.

The revamp was originally due to be completed in August but has taken longer than expected. (left out and millions more than expected)

The TAB took down its website at 7pm on Sunday in preparation for the switch, which was completed on Monday afternoon.

Allen said the new service would let the TAB "compete with the rest of the world, increase our revenue and in turn, our distributions back to racing and sport". (and they all lived happily ever after).

"Our customers will have access to more options than ever before on sporting events from around the world." (what about your racing customers what did they get out of it other than headaches)

These include more "live" betting options. The new site also makes it easier for customers to withdraw money from their online accounts. (making it harder far outweighs the easier aspects)

The overhaul comes amid discussions over whether the TAB should be outsourced completely. (oh well that just got the rubber stamp) 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They say dogs are a lot like their owners and I think it must also apply to betting platforms and NZRM senior management eg dysfunctional, frustrating and a complete waste of time and of money.

Word is millions behind again in the 2nd week. Some fairy tales just don't come true do they John.

Where are the reasons why your down millions in the first 2 weeks and what your doing to counter it? The silence as they say is deafening.

[puha 2,177]

Lights Out is right on the money . Looks like the racing person has been shafted with the design of the new site. 

[Rusty 575]

I phoned Tracktalk nationwide on Des' show (Trackside radio) last Sunday. 

We have your number Rusty, we'll get someone to give you a call they said, as they couldn't really give an answer. 

And a little boy waits.... and hopes.

[chevy86 2,704]

Just chilling with a rum and thought I would try and "explore" the new platform a little more as I really am a racing fan and love losing money on the horses. (punting, breeding and owning). Went to try an "all-up" on 2 races at Ellerslie tomorrow. Both paying double figures and entered them on my betslip via the fixed odds prices but concerned that it did not compute "potential winnings". Anyway pressed "place bets" and received a message saying "unable to place bet into pool ,or similar" ???? Rang the help desk and surprisingly got through. Asked fellow whether option was suspended, which he did not know, told him I was concerned it might be, due to no computation of potential win when it was based on fixed odds. His response was that winnings could not be assessed as it operated on "tote odds"! FFS--haven't we been conditioned in the last week that it now operates on fixed odds.Anyway he seemed a pleasant fellow but he didn't have a clue about what was going on.

The bet slip showed both horses, all up, and my bet amount so any advice on why my efforts may have failed would be appreciated. Be easier to learn Chinese than navigate this new platform.

[CosmicBlackie 128]

Chevy, you could only place an All Up on the day of the races with the old Jetbet system, looks like this is the case with this system as well. You’d be fine if you had changed to “ multi” and taken the fixed odd prices.

Cheers.

[LightsOut 486]

Quote

I phoned Tracktalk nationwide on Des' show (Trackside radio) last Sunday. We have your number Rusty, we'll get someone to give you a call they said, as they couldn't really give an answer. And a little boy waits.... and hopes.

Rusty why are you surprised that you haven't heard your phone ring when a NZRB employee tweets the following - 

Quote

Thaddeus Taylor‏ @TTaylorTAB 133 hours agoThe silence is deafening...

I hope that little boy doesn't hold his breath while waiting.

[colx 4]

Any one know how I can find the radio link 

[LightsOut 486]

Quicker and easier to go to NZTR and get the link there. Right hand side on home page.

Also unfortunately quicker and easier to read NZ race results by going to NSW or Victoria TAB's 

 

[lindsay carston 81]

trying to get connected to radio trackside as per normal on sat morning but says stream not working.anyone else?

 

[HarryHindsight 117]

The only thing you can bet on here is their salaries and bonuses remain intact, maybe a modest increase.

Does building a new post office sell more stamps ?

[colx 4]

Nztr radio link not working

[lindsay carston 81]

12 minutes ago, colx said:

Nztr radio link not working

Biggest balls up since Pearl Harbour

[colx 4]

Wonder if the radio link will be working in time for the start of racing don’t think I would bet on it

[LightsOut 486]

Sorry Colx I just assumed it would work without checking first (oh dear I sound like I work for the NZRB).

Can the silence get any deafer?

 

 

[Phantom 494]

2 hours ago, colx said:

Any one know how I can find the radio link 

it's not on the website, apparently was deemed unnecessary which is a pain for me as I can't stream Trackside. There is an app called Rova which has Radio Trackside but I keep getting an error message from there to like every other time I try to do something on the new site. It's embarrassing to be honest, they can put whatever spin they want on it but the proof will be in the pudding. I give Allen six months Hopefully he'll take Hughes with him when he goes because she has done sweet **** all since shes been there.

[ivanthegreat 1,123]

16 hours ago, Rusty said:

I phoned Tracktalk nationwide on Des' show (Trackside radio) last Sunday. 

We have your number Rusty, we'll get someone to give you a call they said, as they couldn't really give an answer. 

And a little boy waits.... and hopes.

Don't expect dear old Des to do anything other than "appease".

He runs with the foxes and hunts with the hounds , probably HAS to work to pay for gambling losses , who else continues to work at 69 or 70 when they could sit back in the recliner and get stuck in to all those race selections. ?