| Fresh from the shock and awe generated by journalist Frank Robson on re-homing and euthanasia (see SMH article 15 Feb) and Nathan Absoloms reaction to it, we learnt that the national greyhound industry does not know where it is going. It couldnt, because no-one is adding up what we do across the country. Some states will know bits and pieces but whether or how they publish them or not is in the lap of the gods. Definitely not in the case of euthanasia (NSW-GWIC excepted). Greyhounds Australasia, which depends on the states supplying it with information, has offered no figures at all for the last five years - none - and has never included euthanasia numbers anyway. Theres no regos, no litters, no race numbers or starters, and so on. Breeding is a particular problem because it embraces activity both within and between all states talking about only one or two states will be misleading. To say nothing about the alleged overbreeding which still pops up in odd places, even though it was never true. And right now breeding is a disaster with virus-like overtones. But theres more. With the recent publication of Racing Australias Fact Book we can now see the 2018/19 all-code data on betting turnover. This is collated from data supplied by various organisations and state racing departments with the exception of Betfair, which refuses to advise on turnover (it does not think turnover is relevant in its business). Compare turnover in 2009/10 with 2018/19. It says that total betting increased by 67.6% to $37.8 billion. Thoroughbred turnover went up by 45.6%, Sports by a whopping 319.7%, while Harness fell by 17.2%. At the same time, Greyhounds rose by only 6.5%. Hullo! Yes - from $2.942b to only $3.136b, despite inflation and many increases in meetings and races run. Over that 10 year period the greyhound figure wobbled up and down from a low of $3.111b (2013/14) to a high of $4.212b (2014/15) and everything in between. Somehow or other, it seems that turnover from the corporates and/or Fixed Odds is getting lost in translation. Since this group now handles over half of all turnover, this is a massive worry. Whatever the truth, the question we are left with is how the devil can you make decisions and run an industry when you dont know what its statistics are? And who will fix them? How can we promote our story if we dont know what it is?
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Do you have questions how to use the Greyhound-Data website?
