Have you ever wondered why greyhound racing has declined since its introduction to the UK, 96 years and seven months ago?
TV, the betting shops, taxation, land values . . . Perhaps it has simply ‘had its day?’
In my view, all bar the last one are relevant.
But, I’ll tell who started the rot – ‘Adolf Hitler!’
Needless to say I’m not actually blaming the goose stepping Lance Corporal directly. I’m not sure ‘screwing up dog racing’ was ever likely to have appeared on a charge sheet longer than Prince Harry’s therapy bill, but join me on this journey.
Greyhound racing had been operating for 13 year when World War II broke out. It is hard to imagine it now, but this industry was an overnight sensation. Millions of people were going dog racing every week. It survived the war and then had to survive the peace.
The period between 1946-1949 was a real boom time. Annual attendances hit over 90 million and dog racing was getting even bigger crowds than league football.
The problem was, the war had to be paid for, and dog racing got absolutely shafted. It was taxed virtually out of existence by the new Labour Government in 1948 whose antipathy didn’t extend to horse racing.
From our ‘Remember When’ archive:
1949 The NGRS announce that in the first full year following the introduction of 10% tote betting tax, turnover for 1948 fell from over £99m to £46m (equivalent today of £4.9bn falling to £2.3bn). This was despite an increase in attendance. The Government took approximately £4.5m in tax during that period (index linked to roughly £225m) compared to the racecourse combined share of £2.7m (£135m). Much of the tote betting has switched to the track bookies who can now offer more competitive odds.
The important bit of the story is not simply the taxation in itself, or even all the gambling and opening restrictions, which were brutal.
For example, not only were dog tracks restricted on how many races they could stage (8 – except for ‘special meetings), they were restricted to 104 meetings per year. To compound the issue, they had to race on the same nights as their nearest neighbours if they were in the same licensing area. There were around 100 tracks and all were affected.
The important bit about this short trip down memory lane is to consider its knock-on effect. By the mid 1950s, the absolute geniuses who had guided greyhound racing from zero to national phenomenon in a quarter of a century – and made incredible fortunes in the process – decided to bale out.
We are talking super shrewd entrepreneurs, which included the original GRA founders and the likes of Sydney Parkes, owner of the Wandsworth group of tracks, a multi millionaire – very much a rarity back then – whose assets included a home with the largest privately owned garden in London.
I have often wondered what would have happened had the shrewdies kept their financial interest in dog racing!
Yes, the threat of betting shops opening in 1961 was just around the corner, but they would surely have had the nous to beat them to the punch? They already had the tote. They could even have set up bigger stronger rivals to take on the fledgling Joe Coral, William Hill and Cyril Stein.
What of the arrival of TV? Again, they could have been ahead of the game and utilised the new media outlet.
Remember these were the same guys who had taken over the failing Empire Stadium and turned it into Wembley. It was dog racing which kept Wembley open, not football. The same thing for the decrepit Olympic Stadium that would become White City. Bill Chandler, himself a bookie, built Walthamstow on the grounds of an old whippet track at the Crooked Billet. Or Will Cearns who started out as an accountant, made millions as a builder, while saving Wimbledon Stadium and becoming chairman of West Ham United.
The original GRA founders had built purpose built training facilities like Northaw, a 150 acre site with accommodation and staff for three tracks. Or their breeding kennels in Naas and Surrey.
Unfortunately, the GRA was left to be run by a bunch of talentless numpties. Everything the touched turned to shit, most notably their ventures into the property market which effectively bankrupted the company in the early 1970s.
The GRA name can still be found on bits of signage at Perry Barr but the beating heart of the company died in the 1950s when they were still a great company. The founder of greyhound racing in Britain actually ended up closing many more greyhound tracks than it ever opened.
So where are we going with this?
Well just imagine that you believe greyhound racing is the best betting product in the world but it has been left in the hands of promoters without the flair to develop and exploit it.
Sure we have had some very clever track promoters, but usually small operators never with enough clout to take the rest of the industry with them.
They were consistently outsmarted and outmanoeuvred by the betting industry and any future planning was based on how easily they could sell on for housing. It is all this industry has done for decades.
So what kind of business are we – really?
I made reference last week to the emergence of the two rivals in the media rights battle, PGR (ARC/Entain) and SIS.
They see the value of greyhound racing. IT is the product.
Unlike the majority of track promoters over the years, ARC are not waiting for the property developer to phone. SIS don’t own tracks anyway, and are totally dependent on ‘product’
We are also dealing with some very sharp guys. I can’t say I know my way around both companies but have met some of their people along the way.
SIS is manned by people with huge experience and extensive betting industry and production skillsets. Apart from the technical expertise, they also host many of the bookmaker’s own betting channels.
ARC is bristling with bookies, accountants and no small number of lawyers in the Millbank Sharktank next to the Thames.
The SIS business plans looks straightforward, not to undermine its complexity. Greyhound racing is only a tiny part of their portfolio as the ultimate middlemen.
They will buy Zebra racing fixtures and sell them, beautifully packaged, to anyone who wants them, along with lottos, e-sports, and just about anything else you can punt on.
ARC are particularly interesting as the newest arrivals – since I think we can assume that they didn’t buy five greyhounds tracks for the fun of it.
There has to be a plan.
I spotted this story recently concerning horse racing and assume that dog racing will go along the same route.
Here is my guess, putting two and two together and coming up with God knows what.
Can we all agree that betting is broken, particularly in relation to dog racing?
If you were compiling a list of the biggest crimes in British history, the introduction of ‘industry prices’ would rise above Brinks Mat and the Great Train Robbery.
Something had to be done. But that??!!
Working to a 128% margin is so badly warped that it deserves to fail. If you are not convinced, check out the two sets of prices on the right hand side of your RPGTV screens.
The exchanges have destroyed betting as we know it. They work to very low margins, unless you happen to be a professional punter, as Gary Noble once explained to me.
Betfair has blown holes in the off-course and on-course market too.
The sight of track bookies taking money with one hand and laying it off on Betfair would have been enough to see the Power twins sobbing into their satchel.
Is there a solution?
Well – maybe.
The problem with the exchanges is that they lack liquidity. Also, they don’t provide the option of early prices.
So . . . How about going back to the future – Tote betting?
The totalisator was vital to greyhound racing from the very early days.
Tracks made fortunes on their totes until 1930, when they were banned. That was reversed four years later when the Government set a limit restricting the track’s retention to 6%. However, in Sir Stafford Cripps’ crippling budget they gave themselves 10% on top of that, even though betting with the bookies was only 2.5%. (There was no ban or tote tax for horseracing)
Another snippet from the archives:
“1950 – Oxford announce that they will close during the month of December and they lay the blame with the Government. They produce figures showing that for the first month 11 months of the year, they had paid out £21,595 in totalisator tax, £9,459 in bookmaker tax and £4,152 in entertainment duty. Their total receipts for that period was £20,800. The directors estimate that had they kept trading in December, they earn the Government £300 in tote tax alone, but after overheads, they would lose £200 per week.”
By 1964 the Government halved tote tax and then halved it again two years later to 2.5%. In 1986 on-course tax was scrapped.
In the meantime, the tracks had set out to strangle the golden goose.
Having been restricted to a maximum deduction of 10% prior to 1966, they could now rise to 12.5%. By 1972 it was up to 16.5%, and by 1975 it was 19%, though that did include the 4% to the Government.
But after betting tax was removed in 1985, the tracks didn’t reduce their retentions, they added to them. They justified their actions by pointing to the reduced crowds. The ultimate downward spiral.
Yet the reality was, with restrictions on race numbers being lifted, things started to boom. Walthamstow’s tote topped £10m for the first time in 1987. Wimbledon’s jumped by 32% to £7.9m.
In 1989 the Stow his £16.35m, an average of £105K per meeting (equiv today of £334K).
More changes in the law gave track the chance to increase their retention to a maximum of 29% though most upped it to – a mere – 20%.
Tote was a significant source of income for the tracks – a 1995 Henley Centre study showed the tote was responsible for 27% of track profits, BAGS was just 10%.
By 2000, Wimbledon had increased its deductions to 25%. By 2003 it was 29%.
You pretty much know the rest – totes are generally 30%.
The golden goose is dead. Not killed by the Government, bookies or even Adolf, but by the tracks themselves.
But life moves on. Habits change. Technology evolves, especially the totalisator.
When Harry Findlay took over Coventry ten years ago, he had the kernel of a genius idea but he was a bit ‘between times’.
The idea of a 10% tote was absolutely on the right note. Harry had worked out that in an inflated market, there would always be a place for someone who could undercut the opposition – and ‘industry prices’ was a car crash that still hadn’t left the drive. He also knew his track tote history.
But he had also missed the boat, by several years. Basically, greyhound crowds had dwindled, nationally, by that stage that you simply couldn’t get enough punters through the gate to make the tote fly.
Although internet was around, it was still a growth industry from a gambling perspective.
But Harry’s idea of using experts to tightly price up a card in the way that an old fashioned bookie would, via a tissue, was absolutely on the money.
A decade on, and Harry is trying again at Lifford.
From a ‘footfall’ perspective, Lifford looks a worse bet than Coventry. It is a fabulous facility in a comparatively sparsely populated area. It failed before for a reason. It was, so I am told, a well run track and well promoted in the early years.
Anyway, I don’t go for the concept that ‘promote it well and they will come’.
Well they might come on a Friday or Saturday night, but people’s habits are not what they were 30 or 40 years ago.
The 2,000 folk that turned out at Sheffield on Boxing Day were well aware that the place existed, but only a small proportion of them returned the following Tuesday.
Midweek meetings were always less attended than weekends but going out on ‘school nights’ is no longer a thing – even at a facility as good as Sheffield.
I know of many greyhound owners who wouldn’t think to go racing midweek, even if they had a runner, but purposely hope to be able to watch their runner on RPGTV.
No, the key to Lifford’s potential success is technology. (I think they may struggle to get enough dogs, though I might be accused of ‘being negative’.)
But a 10% tote with expertly compiled odds, which can then be seeded with cash to provide the liquidity to take on the exchanges and then sold around the world by Tote UK???
In the last decade, greyhound racing’s international profile has extended incredibly but the big punters don’t go near the ‘128%’ fixed odds or 130% tote betting.
Look to Hong Kong horseracing of Australian dogs to see the oceans of gambling cash in circulation when they are betting to 114%.
From a personal point of view, I haven’t been into a betting shop in years. Of my last 100 bets, 90 have probably have been on my phone, the rest on my computer. I certainly wasn’t betting on my phone when Coventry staged its last race.
It appears that Tote are using Lifford as a guinea pig, with options to roll out the 10% model elsewhere, and that makes great sense to me.
If you are a punter, and Tote are offering decimal odds of 3.5, when everyone else is offering 2.5, AND your £500 isn’t going to destroy the odds, where are you going to bet?
(I was chatting to Paschal Taggart about this article. He is part of syndicate who might put £2K together just for the fun of punting their dog, but they’ve stopped betting because they refuse to take 6-4 about a 7-1 chance)
Which leads me back to the link mentioned above.
“Cutting-edge retail technology lies in our core offering, and we are glad to be able to provide betting operators with the most comprehensive live racing service for Tote betting.”
Now maybe I have this all wrong, but I have always thought that this was the natural progression for ARC. I was simply waiting to jump on a clue.
In fact, but for Adolf, and the exodus of some genuinely brilliant businessmen, I reckon this would have happened a very long time ago.
