I am currently living overseas so GD is pretty much my only source of greyhound info at the moment.....so I was interested in looking at how much money is being wagered on the dogs nowadays and how much of that is each way, place and trifecta betting (and how that might be affected by 6 dog fields).

Place betting was slightly less than what I expected, but overall I think we would expect a significant drop off in those bets, with only a portion being re-invested in the win pools.

What I found really shocking however was the total pools.

Below are the TAB pools for a City Saturday evening FFA race and
for one random race from today's Tier 3 results.

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FFA City Race

Win $10,725.60 Place $1,942.80 Quinella $2,411.00 Exacta $1,027.90 Duet $0.00 Trifecta $4,804.20 First Four $4,568.40 Daily Double $1,268.50 Quaddie $5,082.00 Running Double (8,9) $100.50

Total hold = 31930.9
Prizemoney paid = 8940

Tier 3 Race

Win $8,442.70 Place $1,208.90 Quinella $1,251.10 Exacta $1,165.50 Duet $141.90 Trifecta $3,205.70 First Four $1,867.50 Running Double (6,7) $36.00 Daily Double $237.00 Quaddie $157.50

Total hold = 17713.8
Prizemoney paid = 945

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My first reaction was "what the hell has happened to the holds????".
Maybe my memory isn't so good any more, but I could have sworn that the holds were at least 10-20% higher 2-3 years ago?

Obviously the above is a very small sample size.....and the PTB assure us that things are humming along fine.....but I am a little concerned that turnover does appear to be flat lining a little....

Of even greater concern though is the prizemoney distribution.

What is the current % return on turnover that the TAB gives to the greyhounds?

I seem to remember it is the region of 10%, but I'm sure someone can give us the correct figure.

Regardless, it is increasingly obvious that City racing is MASSIVELY over compensated at the expense of the lower grades.

I knew it was bad, but on the above figures City races are losing $5000-$6000 per race (not including sponsorship monies earned). That's despite having Prime Time racing dates/times and better Sky coverage.
By contrast, T3 dogs/trainers/owners are shunted off to the worst timeslots and days, still manage to turn over about 60% of what the City meets do.........yet are receiving about half of the dividend they are entitled to!

Given how welfare conscious we now are and how "wastage" needs to be reduced.......how can anyone justify such a criminally irresponsible allocation of funds???

The vast majority of dogs are operating at a loss.....even if they are winning races.
Is it any wonder they are moved on?

All dogs whether they run last every race contribute to revenue for the industry so I'm a believer in redistributing the prizemoney more evenly & paying all runners.

There are dogs already racing now just as "trailer fillers" so trainers can get the travel money (which is just another form of "appearance" money anyway). If you start paying all runners as well, there will be unscrupulous types that run dogs knowing they are a bit sore, or not quite right or just not good enough.

If your dog is graded properly and placed well by the trainer then they will usually finish in the money at 50% or more of their starts. If they are suitably rewarded for that (rather than subsidising the other Grades) then you that dog can have a long and profitable career.

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Q. I note Sandown moving races forward 1 hour on thur, why ? could it be capture prime betting time ?

There is to big of difference between city,county to tier 3.

Look at Healsville I think prize money is around $660 then you come to cup heats there and they jump to $10k I think. And the final around $35-50k.

It's the local trainers that keep that track afloat.

We need to look after the little trainers more it's these guys who are keeping this industry going.

Until the prizemoney for GRV starts to level out or worse decreases, then start to worry.

But I do agree with you Mark that prizemoney from the bottom up should be increased which would benefit everyone.

Firstly, let me point out I am NOT an accountant!
The following is a very simplified look at turnover, income received and prizemoney paid.
There are quite a few assumptions made where I have always erred on the side of conservatism and given the benefit of the doubt to Group and City races......rather than engage in any confirmation bias.

So......the (very basic) figures I come up with are.....

30 city Group Races pay $2.4m prizemoney
10 country Group Races pay $0.53m prizemoney
Approx 2400 City races pay $17.7m
Approx 11,000 T2/T3 races pay $22.4m

Based on the industry returning approx 5% of gross turnover back to the industry as prizemoney (the rest goes to welfare, GAP, maintenance, wages etc, etc)........

The average city Group race pays $80k in prizemoney and needs to turn over 1.6 MILLION dollars just to pay it's way!
That's just an average though..........the Melbourne Cup would need to turn over $8,400,000 to earn enough to pay the prizemoney!!!!!!!!!

The average country Group race pays $53k and needs to turn over 1.06 MILLION dollars to pay it's way

The average City race needs to turn over 143,000 dollars to pay it's way

and

The average country race needs to turn over 40,000 dollars to pay it's way

The ONLY racing in Victoria that is running at a profit (and subsidising all other racing) is COUNTRY racing (T2/T3)!

Please feel free to dispute the figures or correct any errors I have made.

Total other income streams is $4.1 million.
Most of that is registrations, GOBIS payments etc.
Sponsorships might be in there somewhere.....or they may be only on the books for the clubs?
I've had to make some broad assumptions, but I have always made those assumptions with any bias favouring Group/City races (i.e. I have tried to give them the benefit of the doubt wherever possible).

Reality is, the above figures are actually overly generous towards City and Group races. The true figures are probably far worse!

I would agree with you. They need to up the prize money from the bottom up. If that means taking some from city and group races then so be it.

The hobby trainers are getting the raw end of the deal.

The holds are just from the Vic Tab pools shown on their website...

As you noted, Corporates and Betfair now receive about 50% of all Greyhound betting turnover.

Regardless of whether that was a quiet week or not, the salient point is that turnover on City and Group races is not even remotely close to what is needed to justify the prizemoney those races are allocated.

37 of those meetings were country (T2/T3). So, about 97% of the increase in turnover is thanks to country racing.

Vic TAB pools, from their website.

Re the corporates, is their turnover growing at the city meetings or at the T3s?

I haven't checked the extra meetings, but if there was an extra 37 meetings at T2/T3 level, that would be a lot more prize money available at T2/T3 level?

In recent years, not only is there a lot more opportunities to race at T2/T3 level, the gap between city and provincial prize money has actually decreased. Also, greyhounds that typically race at the provincials have a far greater opportunity to race for better prize money than they have on the past with the number of GDRs, VicBred, country-city series etc

Way to big of gap.

Times have changed we need to even the gap.

City meetings should be around $3500
Country meetings $1750
Tier 3 $1000 including Healesville

Also second and third should be more.