LIFE, it is said, is a lottery - it all depends on the numbersthat you get. And if you are a bookmaker, it seems, the numbers arealways in your favour.
The bookies recently have been insulting the rest of racing andthe betting public with their risible offers towards the annuallevy, the curious form of taxation whereby, more or less, theydictate what they want to put into racing for the privilege oftaking money from us. The levy is the lifeblood of racing, and paysfor everything from course improvements to prize-money. The LevyBoard are effectively supposed to conduct negotiations between thebookies and the sport, but this year, as oft previously, the'negotiations' have been farcical.
The national Bookmakers' Committee last week offered the LevyBoard GBP 58m a year. Taking inflation into account, that's lessthan they offered two years ago, and GBP 75m less than the BritishHorseracing Board want them to pay. Their offer is a joke,considering that the Big Three bookies are on course to makeburgeoning profits of more than GBP 150m a year after they havehanded over the levy contributions. Don't forget, it is punters'money that they are paying out.
The bookies' side say that if they are forced to pay more, theywill charge the punters more. They add that racing is contributingless and less to their turnover. Nonsense! Racing still constitutesby far the major part of bookmaking business in this country, and isthe mainstay of almost every betting operation other than somespread-betting companies.
If the Levy Board cannot reach a settlement by October 31, HomeSecretary Jack Straw will decide the level of the levy. The bookiesare clearly betting that he will favour them and not force them topay the kind of sums for which the racing industry is looking. It'sa good bet, because Straw and his New Labour pals are wimps - andwon't want to fight.
Mind you, I said that about Ladbrokes' takeover of Coral, and Iwas pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong, so maybe miracles canhappen again, and the bookies will be thumped roundly by Straw. Itwould be no more than they deserve for trying to evade paying themoney that the sport utterly needs and deserves.
While he is at it, Mr Straw, who is a great man for moralrectitude, should have a look at what is going on in bookmakers'premises where new, frankly disturbing, forms of gambling have been introduced.
If you have not visited a betting shop for a few years, yousimply would not recognise the place. Horrible, noisy, one-armedbandits festoon almost every outlet, their bright lights designed todupe the impressionable into thinking that such gambling isexciting.
Another development comes in various forms of electronic lottery,such as Rapido, based (would you believe) on random selection ofnumbers: complete madness, and about as entertaining as anappendectomy. It's more or less the same racket on which many aMafioso made a fortune in the USA, since such numbers games arehugely profitable for the bookies, as the percentages are alwaysvery much in their favour.
So dependent have British bookmakers become on these base formsof gambling, that you can now bet on the numbers picked in theIrish, New York, German and Spanish lotteries. You would have to behalf daft to do so, however, since the odds that you get aredictated by the bookies, and not by the actual chance of youpredicting the correct numbers.
Another quite awful development is the growth of 49s, thecontroversial bookies' lottery which the operators of the NationalLottery - at least they give some cash to charity - unsuccessfullytried to ban, because it was so obviously a copy of their game. In49s, however, you get to lose your money twice a day...instead oftwice a week.
For once, New Labour's moral thought police could do racing fansa favour and investigate the horrors that the bookies are inflictingupon the betting public. They may be legal, but are they legitimate?After all, I thought that casinos were the only places in whichsimple betting on numbers was allowed, and the cleverly devisednature of the games makes me worry that they are forms of gamblingwhich are more addictive than usual.
Meanwhile, the bookies should be told that the days are numberedin which they can treat racing as a cash cow to be milked and neverfed. They must be forced to invest massively in improving the mostimportant part of their operations, the sport of horseracing,instead of paying the industry a pittance - and flim-flamming tojustify naked greed.
