Good TAB Numbers- Distribution time

[tasman man 742]

9 minutes ago, JJ Flash said:

So come next season the TAB have said the code distribution will be $170mio. So they are forecasting more $ in the pot for distribution but the crux of the issue is what is NZTR's share of the $170 and how are they going to put the extra to work.

PS I think is the wash up there will be more than 170 but that's another matter

Where's that miserable  Nomates to give us his low down on all things re racing funding.

Spare us....pleeez !

Miserable indeed !

Sadly I think the 'glass half empty.....or real empty ......brigade' will have plenty to moan about as the delay in Funding announcement means there is a real shit fight happening about each codes distribution.

Then there is the fact that each code has said they will tuck some away to try and build up some reserves/equity .

Stakes are expected to rise......IMO the only way this can happen is by 'smoke and mirrors'........having less races is ONE obvious way which creeps in with 8 race cards now the 'norm' and more and more 7 race cards.

NZTR have stated that the lowest minimum stakes got the rise 'last time' which seems a surprise as I felt this was the first level which needed a boost ,particularly with costs increasing so much and ready to inevitably go up again....and so many maidens around !

So what are the positives ?

Code distributions should be rising ...and the money  actually earned ...2020 excepted when Govt handout assisted......thru better TAB margins on similar betting totals in very competitive environment.

Costs are being controlled ,and some clubs/regions accepting their demise better and working to collaborate with others to survive and maybe continue on in some form. Rationalisation as per Messara report seems to be settling in ,slowly.

Sports doing well from TAB results...some very well !

And the big one this week......the amalgamation decision between ARC and Counties could get members green light which should give the Industry a big boost once the plan is implemented over next few years.......a better track at ARC ,a better training facility and higher sustainable stakes into the future [ in the Northern region at least].

As usual.....JMO.

[shaneMcAlister 1,425]

51 minutes ago, JJ Flash said:

So come next season the TAB have said the code distribution will be $170mio. So they are forecasting more $ in the pot for distribution but the crux of the issue is what is NZTR's share of the $170 and how are they going to put the extra to work.

PS I think is the wash up there will be more than 170 but that's another matter

Where's that miserable  Nomates to give us his low down on all things re racing funding.

Its a budgeted (not given yet) distribution of $170M.  $30M is from racefields and repelling the betting level....

The increase on budget is against a Covid budget.

Till a bottom dweller like myself is not racing for $10K stakes I will not hold my breath.  I WANT TO KNOW WHAT STAKES ARE FOR NEXT YEAR, THIS IS BULLSHIT.

SportsBet (who wanted to discuss a JV with NZ TAB) is up 54% in turnover compared to last year.  The Covid time (no holidays, government money) has been a boom for bookmakers.

 

[scooby3051 10,864]

TAB mistruths, NZTR threats and a witch-hunt – what a mess!

by Brian de Lore
 Published July 4th 2021

The willingness of TAB NZ to pull the wool over the eyes of the racing public became evident once again on Friday when it released a media statement claiming the credit for $30 million of income derived, not from the TAB, but the 2020 legislation.

The $30 million is made up $20 million from ‘racefields’ or BIUC (Betting Information User Charges) and $10 million from the repeal of the two percent betting levy – two of the 17 Messara Review recommendations written into the racing Act of 2020, and nothing whatsoever to do with the TAB.

The TAB’s announcement that budgeted distributions to the racing codes for the upcoming  2021/22 season will be 23 percent higher than the $117 million budgeted distributions for the current season is laughable.

$117 million budget was low-ball because of COVID19

The $117m set by the TAB for the current season was a low-ball budgeted figure set when there were significant uncertainties for the future of New Zealand’s wagering and gaming businesses because of COVID-19.

So, this budget for the current season is $33 million below what is required to fund the codes to enable them to maintain stakes at the pre-COVID level and the anticipated TAB betting profits for the current season.

All this smoke and mirrors carry-on was part of the Glenda Hughes-John Allen publicity machine under NZRB, and now with a name change to TAB NZ and under the Chief Transitional Officer Dean McKenzie, nothing has changed.

The chasm between reality and the fanciful world of Dean McKenzie is wider than the Grand Canyon. The participants of racing have only ever wanted to know the truth handed out by someone who is genuinely working in their interests – not some overpaid, self-serving egotist of the type we have seen succeed each other for the past decade.

In the media release, McKenzie said: “It’s great that we’re in a position to increase our returns…we’re now seeing the positive returns from the investment made by the Government and the industry in the TAB. We’re excited with where we are heading and incredibly proud that significant tangible benefits….”

He’s excited, is there anyone in the real world excited?

Under last year’s legislation, the devolvement of many areas of responsibility from NZRB/RITA/TAB NZ to the racing codes has not happened because the three codes have not come together, as the legislation provided for, to draw up a commercial agreement for the negotiation of distributions into the codes, etc..

Bringing in the Racing New Zealand board was new to the legislation, and invented explicitly to: “act as a consultive forum for the racing codes, and to represent the racing codes in relation to negotiations, interactions with other bodies under this Act, and other matters, with the agreement of the racing codes.”

However,  Racing New Zealand cannot function effectively because it hasn’t been appropriately appointed. It’s supposed to have one person from each of the codes and two independents. But the two independents haven’t been appointed, and the codes have been running it on a please themselves basis in the first year by taking along the three CEOs – Saundry, Woodham, and Hughes – none of those three are supposed to be involved and shouldn’t be involved.

It’s all very well having newish, one-year-old legislation in place, but when you have an industry that deliberately ignores bits and pieces to suit itself, it’s no different to them claiming they’re doing the Messara Review when, in fact, it’s only cherry-picking the low hanging fruit and leaving out the vital clauses.

Some of our leaders haven’t even read the legislation

Having spoken to some of the decision-makers at various times, would it surprise that some haven’t even read the legislation, and if they have, have only skimmed over it and don’t get it.  Not that we wouldn’t mind altering the 59 clauses that require Ministerial stamp of approval to do anything – knowing we have a Minister very short on industry knowledge (and appearances) and advised by non-specified interested parties.

Racing remains in a mess. NZTR has been weak and has seen a deterioration in its relationship with racing people trying to stay active in the game. NZTR CEO Bernard Saundry refers to them as customers, but he isn’t running a corporation; in reality, he‘s their employee and should support them and develop initiatives to keep people active in racing and breeding. The foal crop numbers prove that’s not happening.

Where’s the future plan? It’s July 4^th, and as I write this we have no funding model for the clubs for the season starting August 1st. On Weigh In when last interviewed, Saundry suggested prizemoney increases for the middle and top races, and the bottom level had their turn three years ago. Why didn’t he just kick 90 percent of owners in the guts there and then?

NZTR puts pressure on Dargaville for $800,000 to $1 million

Arrogance on NZTR surfaces regularly. Consider the plight of the Dargaville Racing Club and the stand-off that now exists as NZTR tries to enforce Clause 25 of the Racing Act 2020, which specifically addresses the ‘Transfer of surplus venue by agreement.’

NZTR has its hand out for 40 percent of the value of the Dargaville Racecourse, which is valued at somewhere between $2 to $2.5 million. Dargaville is an isolated outpost over an hour by car east of Ruakaka. It had one annual community-driven race day but hasn’t had a date allocated for four years. The club resisted taking their race date to Ruakaka as the sponsors and local community said they would not support it.

The Dargaville committee has accepted that the decline in racing would lead to track closures, but the pill they haven’t been able to swallow came when NZTR wrote to the committee to inform them no further racing would be staged at Dargaville with an offer to help sell the racecourse to put the money into other racecourses.

The club has owned the land in an unencumbered title since it was donated to them by a local family named Findlayson about 100 years ago. Since then, volunteer committees have run the racing with all upkeep on the course done through working bees. Not one cent has ever come from NZTR to assist in its maintenance. Some committee members have served for 30 volunteer years, so anyone with a sense of fairness will understand the resistance.

Shane Jones and Winston Peters at odds on the future of Dargaville

The irony of the Dargaville stand-off is the NZ First left hand not knowing what the NZ First right is doing. Almost simultaneously, Winston Peters signed off on the legislation for the ‘land grab,’ as NZ First’s Provincial Growth Fund Manager, Shane Jones, allocated the Dargaville community $900,000 to develop the racecourse for the benefit of the community.

Dargaville is on the point of gaining approval for a retirement village and housing development to benefit the locals, and rightly say the grant or the land value won’t be used to benefit NZTR, and nor it should.

In a letter to Dargaville from Bernard Saundry, dated June 25^th, in part he stated: “As a starting position, we would propose that 20% of the proceeds be allocated to support racing in the northern region, 20% be allocated to NZTR for stakes and other purposes, and the balance (60%) settled on a community trust as the Club has previously proposed.

“I must also warn you that NZTR’s patience in relation to this matter is close to exhausted. We wish, as does the Minister, to see an industry-led negotiated resolution to the future of the Dargaville Racecourse. However, if the Club continues to fail to engage reasonably with NZTR by refusing to provide the information NZTR has requested, or to continues to avoid negotiating in good faith with NZTR, or otherwise act in a way which gives rise to concerns about the Club’s governance and management, we will be left with no choice but to consider other options to bring this matter to a close, such as exercising NZTR’s statutory power to dissolve the Club.”

“…analogous to the collectivisation of farmland in 1920s Soviet Russia” – Dargaville committee

The Dargaville Racing Club take this view:

The ‘Transfer of assets and surplus venues’ clause should have no place in New Zealand. It is analogous to the collectivisation of farmland in 1920s Soviet Russia (‘Your land is not yours, it belongs to everybody, and we are going to collectivise it.’)

“The clause is based on a false premise. Assets built up, particularly in rural communities, from donations of land, from volunteer labour, from grants and local fundraising, are community assets. Not Racing Industry assets, and no amount of Trumpian repetitive rhetoric will alter that fact.

“Racing has been held at Dargaville for nearly one hundred years. Never has there ever been mention of the race track being an ‘industry asset.’ It wasn’t an industry asset when the toilets needed replacing; it wasn’t an industry asset when the track rail needed replacing, or the many other capital improvements.

“The original land was donated circa 1925. In all that time no one can remember, and no record can be found of the New Zealand Racing Industry making any contributions to any capital development at Dargaville.

“All built by working bees, donated labour, donated goods…

“Very considerable input from the local community, first in developing the land, then gradually building up the asset we have now. Clubrooms, commentators tower, toilets, cafeteria, stables, jockey rooms, etc. All built by working bees, donated labour, donated goods, and capital grants from outside organisations such as ASB and Lotteries Board.

“It is an impossible leap to go from that level of community input to claiming, retrospectively, that the Dargaville racecourse, is in fact, an industry asset. It just stretches credulity.”

The Dargaville case rests, your honour. Let this be a warning to all clubs owning their own land, racing only once or twice a year – they’re coming to get you.

And to finish, I should reveal that NZTR isn’t happy with me because I used a table in a blog published on June 18^th, entitled, “Alarming foal crop projection for 2021 as NZTR administratively expands.”

In that blog, I published a table put together by NZTR (the second table that appears) supposedly not meant for my eyes and apparently not meant for publication in The Optimist. I didn’t know that at the time, and it’s only a table I could have composed myself in two or three hours.

But I soon found out the NZTR board, or at least some of them, or perhaps just the absent Chair, was furious and has demanded to know who the whistleblower is. Who supplied the table? I did receive two phone calls making friendly inquiries on behalf of the injured parties but didn’t reveal the source.

Next, I am informed (third hand) that Bernard has sent out an email to over 50 on a database requesting any information as to who leaked the table. What are they going to do to that person if they find out? – disappointing that no reward was offered, and disappointing Bernard didn’t even phone to ask, if he needed to know that badly.

NZTR must have more important things to do than conduct a witch-hunt to find out who leaked the table, especially when it was minor information that was circulated to some clubs by email without a confidentiality stamp.

Well, I can tell you who leaked it, Bernard. It was Bill – a photo of Bill appears in my blog published June 25^th.

[tasman man 742]

13 minutes ago, shaneMcAlister said:

Its a budgeted (not given yet) distribution of $170M.  $30M is from racefields and repelling the betting level....

The increase on budget is against a Covid budget.

Till a bottom dweller like myself is not racing for $10K stakes I will not hold my breath.  I WANT TO KNOW WHAT STAKES ARE FOR NEXT YEAR, THIS IS BULLSHIT.

SportsBet (who wanted to discuss a JV with NZ TAB) is up 54% in turnover compared to last year.  The Covid time (no holidays, government money) has been a boom for bookmakers.

 

Correct in all of above....

Yes a big concern those $10k minimums could remain....it is BULLSHIT !

But the $170 m  surplus, if it eventuates , will be real $$$$ and can be distributed .

In previous years they were working toward racefields and reducing taxes and they paid out more than they earned before it actually in place and earned ...crazy !

That all history now. 

The amalgamated clubs in North are making the decision this week....make sure you stress the importance of getting promised stake increases into the lower stakes as well !

[Chris Wood 1,576]

Stake rises announced, go to the NZTR site.