NRL wants to get higher commissions from the corporates for big events such as the State of Origin while leaving alone the normal week to week club contests. Bookies are not amused and a standoff is in place. (I am not a fan of the way corporate bookies operate, by the way).

Victorian punters will note that this is the same caper followed by Melbourne thoroughbred clubs. The more popular the races, the more bookies have to pay.

In reality, this is screwy logic.

In theory, higher bookie costs will restrict their ability to offer better deals to their customers. Arguably, that would reduce turnover or profits or both. On the other hand, the galloping clubs want to grab as much as they can from a captive or fixed (so they would say) market, much of which is ignorant of racings fine points.

The hard facts are that attendances are falling overall, and so are oncourse bookie numbers and breeding activity in all codes. Prize money is being boosted on occasions by charging owners high entry fees for some peak races (Everest, Magic Millions, etc) while normal betting turnover is flat out covering inflation.

Likewise, weekly NRL matches find it difficult to get fans to the ground but can still fill the house for Origin and Finals.

But back to the heart of it all. If you charge more for a product you will tend to attract fewer customers. Covering inflation is one thing but screwing customers is always a dubious approach. A better option is to turn them into regular fans and thereby profit from them every week.

Admittedly, todays greyhound customers probably do not understand that they are already being overcharged via Fixed Odds where punitive books of 130% are common and nasty rules on payouts show up in the fine print. Pokies and casinos offer much better odds.

All of which is further evidence that the code is being taken over by mugs in pubs using their thumb for a bet while fair dinkum punters are disappearing. Still, a national betting pool could bring some of them back, provided we make life a little easier.

I have a little utility in my system which does the calculation once I enter all the prices.

No different to the ones bookies use on their computers (if any still exist).

Of course, you can't always be certain if the published prices are kosher but the outcome is pretty consistent from one race to the next.

This is also a many-sided thing.

1. Both Watchdog and Ozchase formguide prices also add up to nearly 130%. Why would our authorities do that? They are supposed to be providing a service to the public so why mislead them?

2. In spite of that, the Corporates/FO share of turnover has now moved passed the halfway mark - 52.8% in 2018/19 according to the Fact Book (although their figures cannot really be trusted due to doubts about info supplied to them).

3. The corporates' practices of cutting back/refusing bets and of limiting payouts also has a cost which should be added to the 130% (or whatever).

4. Corporate commissions paid to GRNSW are on the basis of the better of a percentage of surpluses or 1.5% of turnover, whichever is the higher (advice from CEO Hogan). However, in practice he told us the per cent of surpluses is always better, which contrasts sharply with major thoroughbred experience in NSW and Vic where the reverse is true. This means that either NSW punters are terrible (losers) or corporate firms are brilliant at what they do.

5. We have no idea of the actual detail of deals done between state authorities and the corporates. They are never published (except above).

6. There is also a business cost due to the continuously declining tote turnover - which turns off potential customers as effectively they are asked to buy back their own money. It's the devil and the deep blue sea. OR the frying pan and the fire.

7. Such punitive deductions (for FO) are never applied at the gallops where pools are large and competition is genuine.

8. Corporates' moans about the new state taxes are rubbish to the extent that they are not that great and they have huge cost margins over the tote which allow them to play around with promotions and the like. If they have a problem it is that there are too many of them competing for a slice of the same pie. (Same as car manufacturing in Australia)).

They are not bookies anyway. They are financial manipulators.

You do your market to 100% then bet to 50%, or whatever percentage you want to bet to(usually depends on the accuracy of your form). Any percentage you bet to that's under 100% of your market is overs.

For example, if you mark something in your 100% market at $5 that's 20% (dividing 100 by 5), therefore you need $10 to back it if you are betting to 50% of that market, which gives you a 100% profit. Any price you take under that $10 is still considered "overs" however reduces that profit percentage. If you take a lesser price than $5 you're taking "unders".