Since January 2018 the racing schedule for the majority of tracks has seen change and continues to change. It is now totally dictated to them by media requirements. There are two groups handling, dictating, and more importantly paying for this schedule, SIS and TRP (ARC). These two groups now hold the destiny of the sport in their hands.
On the face of it this schedule has created a boom in the sport, but only financially, and I fear only in the short term.
This new schedule, as far as I can see, is purely to present greyhound racing as a betting medium. The off course bookmakers have spoken. They have dictated what times and how much racing they want and the track promoters are attempting to stage it. The bookmaker owned tracks, seeing as they have a vested interest, are obviously going to be compliant and the privately owned tracks are only too pleased to comply as without it they effectively have no business.
The effect of these deals is that tracks have become “ghost tracks”. There is simply no need or incentive for potential racegoers to attend. What I mean is that if a meeting is run on a Monday morning at 11 am (or more recently 8.14 am) it is quite obvious that the amount of paying spectators or owners that might attend could be counted on the fingers of your hands. Virtually any meeting that is run during Monday to Thursday, whether its morning, afternoon or evening falls into this category.
My parents, John and Joyce Noble, captured by a street photographer on their way to Harringay Greyhound Stadium in the 1950s. Greyhound Racing in those days was a local event that most people could walk to or take a short bus, train or cab journey to. It was a social event full of atmosphere, with big crowds full of people from all walks of life, and driven by the betting that took place on course with the bookies and the tote. Unrecognisable from what I talk about below.
The only time tracks have any realistic possibility of attracting racegoers or owners is over the weekends, most of these weekend meetings are scheduled to be on the “betting meetings” programme. With the early start and finish that entails.
The fact is that as a stand alone event greyhound racing cannot attract enough racegoers to make it viable. A couple of days at the weekends cannot generate any real income.
With the maximum “£2 bet per spin” change on the FOBTs in betting shops due to be implemented within 2 years, a lot of betting shops will cease to be financially viable and betting companies will rationalise their high street presence and continue to concentrate more on building online business. Although this might not necessarily impact on the “betting meetings” it can only lead to less betting turnover at least in the short term.
Unless the global betting audience for greyhound racing is a whole lot bigger than it seems to be in the UK and Ireland, I cannot see how bookmakers will continue to justify paying the money they currently do to stage these meetings. The pattern for the future of greyhound racing has quickly become established. We have no Sky coverage. We have become totally dependent on funding by bookmakers. The Open Race Competition schedule seems to be heading down the road to oblivion.
New or existing owners have less and less reason to get involved in buying dogs and many I have spoken to are saying just that. What appeal does Greyhound Racing have to attract any new owners or clientele? I personally cannot think of anything.
When it comes to bookmaking, turnover is key, but what I do not understand about the bookmakers is the way they seem to do little to encourage turnover on these meetings. Okay, they have presenters talking over the action but to be honest with the non stop races going off every few minutes it just degenerates into what seems to be an endless ramble.
While I realise that nothing is forever and everything must evolve, greyhound racing seems to have done so only at the consent and will of the betting industry.
It has not evolved, it has degenerated into a complete mess with no direction and no forward planning. The governing bodies of years gone by and the current GBGB seem unable to come up with anything other than appeasing the people that now generate the only income to the sport, and paying lip service to pressure regarding welfare.
Where we are today was, I suppose, inevitable from the time where staging greyhound racing in Stadiums became unable to generate anything like the income that could be had by developing those sites. Even so I find it strange that nobody was ever able to come up with ideas for a multi-use Stadium with greyhound racing at the heart of it.
The closest we have had to anything like progress in recent years was the greyhound racing staged at Towcester. They had many good ideas and were in the process of proving that a new approach to greyhound racing might yet succeed. But by a combination of not being “fancied” by SIS, with the income that would have generated, and what might well prove to have been misguided or bad management it has gone the way of many tracks before it, and Im sure, many tracks after it.
When the bookmakers decide that they are not earning enough from staging greyhound race meetings they will be dropped immediately. That is how business works when shareholders are involved. Forget social and welfare implications, they will disregard them.
Where would this leave greyhound racing? Well in my opinion this would lead to mass closure of tracks. A crisis for the sport, which I fear would quickly prove terminal, and perhaps more disturbingly a welfare problem of massive proportions.
I realise that my version of this grim reality will not sit comfortably with everyone, but will surely be recognised by a significant number of greyhound folk.
In forthcoming articles, I would like to talk about my vocation as a professional gambler and some of the insights it has given me into potential options open to both the racing and betting industries.
