06/10/14
Rails bookmaker, Lindsay Gallagher, didn’t field at the Gold Coast meeting last Saturday so his normal Monday column will be back next week.
So today there’s another exclusive story for website visitors to peruse and after you’ve finished reading it you will realize even more just how incestuous the world of thoroughbred racing truly is.
To that end, for some years now, I have exclusively been bringing to account, via articles displayed on this website, random audits on various betting agencies, to compare fixed odds prices.
Tattsbet, which is the “home TAB” in each of Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania banner advertises on websites, including the website of the governing body of racing in this State – Racing Queensland, as per the associated picture with this story, that “For the best fixed prices more often, go to Tattsbet.com”.
So is that a statement of fact or fiction? Given the huge size of the business that is Tattsbet, and given the fact that Racing Queensland, as governing body of the three codes of racing in this State, would be reasonably expected to “lead by example,” given they don’t allow any licensees any latitude regarding “bringing racing into disrepute,” I thought I’d randomly audit the fixed odds prices that were on public display on four main Melbourne Spring Carnival features last Thursday about 7pm. Obviously I could have used numerous outlets for the comparison, so it’s quite possible – in fact it’s what I would deem “highly probable” that even better prices than these listed below were available at the same time, but I didn’t need to audit more than three opposition outlets of Tattsbet to come up with an answer to my question.
In the undermentioned comparison, I lined up the Tattsbet prices with those available at the same time at Centrebet (herein after called C/BET), Sportsbet and Luxbet.
Here’s what my research revealed:
RACE: CAULFIELD CUP
HORSE
TATTSBET
(3 places)
C/BET
(3 places)
SPORTSBET
(4 places)
LUXBET
(4 places)
Dear Demi
11
10
15
10
Bande
12
11
11
11
Lucia Valentina
13
10
10
10
Admire Rakti
16
15
17
18
Spillway
16
16
15
15
The Offer
16
18
17
18
Rising Romance
17
15
11
15
Dandino
21
26
26
21
Stipulate
21
23
21
21
Who Shot Thebarman
21
17
15
18
CONCLUSION: Tattsbet offer the best price on only four of the 10 horses in the market up to 20/1 inclusive – Bande, Lucia Valentina, Rising Romance and Who Shot Thebarman – so that’s conclusive proof that in this instance, Tattsbet only offers the “best fixed odds price” less often – just 40% of the time. Both Sportsbet and Luxbet offer four place dividends.
RACE: CAULFIELD GUINEAS
HORSE
TATTSBET
C/BET
SPORTSBET
LUXBET
Rich Enuff
3.10
3
3
3
Almalad
4.40
5
5
5
Looks Like The Cat
5
5
5
5
Shooting To Win
8.50
9.50
7.50
9
Chivalry
11
11
11
11
Our Vespa
14
15
15
15
Zebulon
15
16
15
15
Kumaon
16
15
15
16
Merion
16
17
17
15
CONCLUSION: Tattsbet offer the “best fixed odd price” on just one of the nine horses in the market up to and including 15/1 (Rich Enuff) and that equates to 11.11% of the time. Since when does 11.11% represent “more often”? I would have reasonably thought that to be “more often” at offering better prices that you would have to offer a better price at least 50.1% of the time.
RACE: COX PLATE
HORSE
TATTSBET
(3 places)
C/BET
(3 places)
SPORTSBET
(3 places)
LUXBET
(4 places)
Fawkner
9
8
9
9
Dissident
10
13
13
13
Sacred Falls
10
7
8
9
Happy Trails
13
13
13
13
Adelaide
14
13
13
12
Silent Achiever
15
14
11
13
Foreteller
17
17
17
15
Almalad
19
13
17
16
Dan Excel
21
28
34
17
The Cleaner
21
26
26
21
CONCLUSION: Tattsbet offer the “best fixed odds” on four of the 10 horses up to and including 20/1 – Sacred Falls, Adelaide, Silent Achiever and Almalad – so yet again that’s only 40%. On these prices, Luxbet offers four place dividends – the others three.
RACE: MELBOURNE CUP
HORSE
TATTSBET
(3 places)
C/BET
(3 places)
SPORTSBET
(4 places)
LUXBET
(4 places)
The Offer
11
12
12
11
Bande
14
13
12
13
Admire Rakti
17
13
17
14
Fawkner
19
17
21
18
Silent Achiever
19
26
26
18
Lucia Valentina
20
21
21
18
Dandino
26
26
26
21
Who Shot Thebarman
26
23
21
26
Pale Mimosa
26
26
Not listed
21
Protectionist
26
17
26
21
Cavalryman
26
35
34
21
CONCLUSION: Tattsbet offer the “best fixed prices” on just one of the 11 horses up to and including 25/1 in the Melbourne Cup fixed odds market (Bande), so their advertising slogan “for the best fixed prices more often” is correct just 9.09% of the time, meaning conversely that it’s what I would call a “grossly false and misleading” statement an incredible 90.91% of the time.
So across those four feature Group 1 races of the Melbourne Spring Carnival, cumulatively 40 horses (Caulfield Cup – 10, Caulfield Guineas – 9, Cox Plate – 10 and Melbourne Cup – 11) were priced by the four entities and Tattsbet offered the “best fixed prices” on 10 horses, which equates to 25% of the time.
I want to know how the hell is it possible then in Australia for a huge entity like Tattsbet to falsely advertise their goods and services without any government watchdog department – whose charter it must surely be to look after the interests of the consumer – taking legal action against them? As reported across mainstream media as recently as a week ago, supermarket giant Coles were found guilty of “false advertising” by The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and have been banned for three years from advertising that their bread is baked fresh daily, with the Federal Court still to rule whether they will fine Coles “up to $3 million” over the breach. Yet in racing this Tattsbet false advertising crap has gone on without so much as one question being asked – except here – for years.
Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au 16 photos taken last Thursday night to confirm the prices I have put up publicly in the aforesaid article were in fact those on offer at the time. Plus there’s The Courier Mail photo from today’s edition, whereby they advise their readers that they are “committed to accurate, fair and fearless publication of news and commentary”. On www.sydneyracing.com.au there’s the story on the big Canola Cup final today at Eugowra as well as the big two Sundays happening at Mt Panorama, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls has his popular Monday Musings article.