I CAN SEE THE FUTURE – CALL ME

I remember seeing a mobile phone for the first time.

It was like an elongated black brick with an aerial. The owner, with Kevin Keegan perm and flares, was sat in his Audi Quattro waving his arms around and shouting into the contraption.

I couldn’t hear a word but it was like a scene from Apocalypse Now. “Okay Buddy, I need choppers. All you got. We’re going to smoke Charlie”

In reality he was probably trying to find a buyer for a flat in Croydon. (And ‘Smoking Charlie’ had an entirely different meaning back then)

But I remember thinking ‘mate, THEY are NEVER going to catch on’

Why would anyone want to lug one of those things about when nearly everyone had a phone at home?

Americans even had those extra long curly leads which meant you could sit on the stairs when you answered it in the hall. There was also a phone box on every corner. But try not to stand in the puddle!

It never occurred to me that mobile phones would get so much smaller and more useful. (Some even flipped open so you could tell Scotty to beam you up. Yes, you did it too!)

Soon they would soon become mobile clocks, newspapers, radios, TVs, libraries, cameras, satnavs, and of equal importance as your right arm.

It seems hard to imagine now – but before mobile phones, there was no way of knowing what a complete stranger was having for their breakfast.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing – last year alone there were 1.3 billion phones sold globally. Doh!

 

The problem is, we inevitably make our judgements and decisions based on things that we already know.

To quote my recently departed Irish mother law, “you did the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time.”

Since nothing like the mobile phone had ever existed before, there was no point of reference.

With the ability to transfer knowledge over four decades, the older wiser me would have sent back some life changing wisdom.

“Oy, Two Planks! You haven’t got a Scooby! Have less to say for yourself and go buy some shares in Apple.”

But even that knowledge would only get you so far.

What about the internet? It wasn’t invented until 1991.

Without phone and internet technology, betting exchanges would be impossible – Betfair was formed in 1999.

The following year, a bookmaker’s daughter in Stoke took fledgling internet gambling into a whole new dimension with the arrival of Bet365.

 

But life and technology continues to evolve. With each passing development, it seemed obvious that ‘betting as we knew it’, was either dead or dying.

Well not quite.

It is true that on-course betting has been savaged with a massive decline in numbers. But can you imagine a day at the races without any bookies in attendance?

It isn’t going to happen.

On-course has had to adapt, and in many cases, it may be as much about ‘money transferring’ than ‘bookmaking’: taking wads at slightly inflated odds, and laying off on laptops. . . but the bookies are still there.

Off-course, there are very few ‘proper’ bookies left but the ‘Gentleman’s Bookmaker’ Ben Keith is reputed to still lay seven figure bets to select clients on select events.

Proper old school! Huge brain and even bigger balls I might suggest.

 

But what about the shops?

Of course I’ve known for a while that betting shops were finished. Saw it a mile off!

It’s all about mobile phones you see. They are the future.

It looked inevitable. Extinction in progress. Look around, all the boarded up shops. My closest shop was a Ladbrokes that closed about three years ago. I only popped my head around the door once.

It was like a scene from Life On Mars, little pens and betting slips on the counter. I was half expecting to see Greyform sheets offering advice on Stan Kennett’s runners at Hackney.

The only difference was, there was no bugger in there.

So when Covid arrived . . . . That was it, they are history!

But to put into some context. . . . .while it is undoubtedly true that we will never again have ’10,000 shops’ in the High Street, have they really fared worse than other small businesses that have fallen victim to Amazon and council rates?

According to the Gambling Commission: “Whilst the popularity of gambling in person has declined over time, it remains a significant part of the sector.”

 

My first suspicions that I might have been a little hasty about retail Armageddon were formed when I heard that Ben Keith was actively buying up ex-William Hill shops.

(If I saw Ben Keith buying a Bruce Forsyth Greatest Hits DVD, I would want to form a queue behind him.)

Sure enough, word started to emerge that ‘retail has had a big bounce’ post Covid.

In fact to complete the Gambling Commission quote about shop trade, it “remains a significant part of the sector and is showing signs of recovery following the pandemic”

Figures show that although betting fell by 16% during Covid, most of that was arrested and the post Covid decline was just 2%.

So if the shops were holding their ground, there must be other factors that I hadn’t considered!

The cynics would point to the untraceability of cash. There will always be tradesmen who earn some or all of their living in ‘readies’. From builders to window cleaners. But cash is also king for a lot of shops and markets and people on a budget. You can’t bet on-line with cash.

And let’s not forget the social element. A great place for the old boys in particular to meet up and have a coffee. Do people really meet up in cafes because they haven’t got Nescafe at home?

But there are other issues too.

My lightbulb moment came recently when chatting to a well known greyhound owner.

He is a successful and respected businessman, who pays his taxes and substantial amounts in VAT every year, but had just popped into a betting shop to have a three figure football bet.

“I won’t bet on-line. The day I have to show someone my passport just to have a bet is the day I give up punting. No chance”

It rang a bell with me, because I feel the same. I have one betting account for a bit of fun. Would I ever feel the need to supply utility bills, proof of identity and affordability?

Not in a million years.

 

Whatever the reasons, there has definitely been a change of tack among the big firms.

Entain run roughly 2,500 of the remaining 6,219 shops and although they have ‘rationalised’ their operation, there are no plans for further widespread closures.

In fact, they are ploughing money into entirely refitting their shops. The ‘Life On Mars’ shops are getting new carpets and lighting, plus high definition TVs for their gantries and digital form screens to replace newspapers.

They are also rolling out new electronic terminals where punters can place their bets on machines offering the sort of betting options that they might normally only have experienced on their Bet365 App.

It will eventually spell the end of betting slips and chewed biros.

The terminals accept cash. The alternative uses a system whereby an amount can be loaded into the system by an employee and those funds are then transferred to a designated terminal.

I’m not aware of the specific safeguards but this is presumably the part of the operation whereby the company is accepting responsibility in monitoring money laundering or problem gambling.

 

So how does this affect me?

Well reader – I don’t think that there is any way of sugarcoating this. You may be facing a moral dilemma of pragmatism over moral sensibilities.

If you are a greyhound enthusiast, you need the betting shops to thrive.

As far as the dogs are concerned, shop turnover outstrips on-line roughly ten to one.

It is ‘retail’ that keeps the greyhound show on the road.

No, I can’t pretend that I will ever embrace industry odds.

But if Dave the Postman only gets 3-1 about a 7-2 chance, between having a few quid on the horses and some kind of lottery game, I don’t really care.

I’m shallow, I know.

But someone has to pay the prize money and the welfare costs of keeping the greyhound racing operating and it might have to be Dave.

 

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Meanwhile, a series of other events have taken place since across the industry since the last ‘Chair’ and they may have some impact on the future.

Just as we published, the story broke that SIS was for sale. Now I am not sure whether I knew that or not.

Apparently, the company asked to ‘test the market’ were recruited last October and the aim was to see if there were investors prepared to ‘take the company to the next level’.

When Racing Post reported the story, they raised the ante by suggesting that the Reuben Brothers, who own ARC, were possible buyers.

‘Possible’ but even that might present a problem. Firstly, it might lead the Competition Commission to start sniffing for ‘monopoly’. In fact, its continued presence might deflect from any competition issues.

There may be some scope for negotiation but they could soon drift into ‘cartel’ waters.

Besides, there are a lot of players who would fight tooth and nail to make sure ARC/Entain don’t ever establish a monopoly.

There are many alternative scenarios of course.

The first is, there are more global players than ARC. SIS hold contracts and expertise that may prove attractive to any number of global gambling set-ups.

In terms of horse and dog racing, SIS own nothing other than contracts. They are not primarily producers, mainly facilitators.

But they do own product in their own right. Just one example, they currently employ in the region of 150 people who spend all day playing video games. Seriously!

Betting on Esports is one of the fastest growing sectors in gambling and SIS are major providers and distributors of the product.

In fact, their business model seems to be growing away from direct competition with ARC.

In a little over nine months time, SIS’s greyhound income and product will fall significantly, but their overall business strategy will simply be tweaked.

You see, SIS see themselves providing a gambling ‘smorgasbord’.

‘You want horses? We have horses, all flavours, some South African, some Italian. You want dog racing. We got that, all different types and classes. We do a very nice line in English Derby? Numbers and roulette, its all on the menu. Computer games for geeks? Our speciality.  Take as much or as little as you like, we just want a percentage of turnover.

So even if SIS is sold, it would probably continue to trade in much the same way as Racing Post continued to publish after being sold at least three times in the last 20 years.

But this situation is forever in flux. Within the last few days, SIS have announced a significant deal with Polish betting company Go+Bet while ARC have unveiled a massively increased agreement with Betfred taking all of their greyhound product from April.

Given the hugely upgraded resources being pumped into greyhound racing by both ARC and Entain this year, my gut feeling is that ARC fancy their chances of dominating the market irrespective of SIS.

If that is the case, it will be interesting to see what their plans are to take the sport forward.

 

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Returning to the subject of Racing Post, they would also appear to have some interesting times ahead.

They have just announced another increase in the cost of the newspaper – up to £31.90 per week.

If you tie that in with the pictures above of the refurbed Entain shops with their digital screens, it doesn’t take a genius to spot a slippery slope.

As one industry expert told me: “The Post are also players in the digital market. But they are only one of several; they certainly don’t have the monopoly that they have with the newspaper. On the day that one of the big multiples goes entirely to digital, the newspaper is finished.”

Which also leads to interesting scenarios over RPGTV which will lose the bulk of its ‘quality product’ when Entain joins ARC on SKY Racing – or whatever that develops into.

 

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Finally, I am sure than most of our readers are aware of the situation regarding an attempt to ban greyhound racing in Wales.

Many of us have signed the petition, and I hope that the rest of us will. The target is 10K to get the subject heard by the Senedd, prior to any inquiry. Hopefully, it may even persuade the Welsh Parliament to hold a genuine and complete enquiry. The response from the Minister to the Petitions Committee was less than convincing.

I remain convinced that we can reach that figure. As Greyhound Star’s GoogleAnalytics print out shows from last weekend, our website readership alone – based on unique IP addresses (not visits or hits) would see us through.

We need friends and supporters to join us, and that requires explanations as to why we feel so passionate about this.

So, I have put together a few words IN RED below that might be easy to copy and paste into emails to explain what this is all about.

 

You may not be aware that there is a campaign financed by American animal rights extremists to see greyhound racing banned in Wales and Scotland.

There is only one greyhound track in each country and it is obvious that the extremists feel there will be minimal backlash or interest. The next step will be an attempt to ban greyhounds in England. They see dog racing as an easy target with minimal political clout but a step along the journey. It is then their stated aim to move on to ban other sports, almost certainly starting with horse racing and equestrian, then sheepdog trials, show dogs, flyball, angling, and so on.

It is worth remembering that the most extreme fanatics even believe pet ownership to be morally unjustifiable.

To achieve their aim, they tell a litany of lies and half truths. They then attempt to produce a logic that says, ‘if you are against animal cruelty, then sign this’.

I am an animal lover and know that greyhound racing is not cruel. Greyhounds love to race, are protected under specialist legislation, monitored by Government through UKAS accreditation of the British Greyhound Racing Board. They can prove that in excess of 94% of ex-racers are re-homed, with veterinary inspection procedures and checks to provide the best possible care for these wonderful animals.

Even if you have no interest in greyhound racing specifically, please do not let this cynical and dishonest cancel culture succeed.

Here is the link, it truly takes less than one minute to complete and your personal details are not published

Thank you