Racing Queensland refuses to budge on minimum bet rule
RACING Queensland continues to fall behind the bigger racing organisations after State Government declared it won’t be introducing a minimum bet rule in Queensland.
Despite Racing NSW and Racing Victoria introducing a minimum bet rule for corporate bookmakers in the last three years and despite Racing Queensland indicating the rule would be implemented in the Race Information Fees deal last year, it has refused to budge on the idea.
The rule was introduced for punters which were consistently restricted by corporate bookmakers – a rule which desperately needed changing as winning punters shouldn’t be punishing for excelling in their craft.
Professional punter Daniel O’Sullivan has found it hard to find a bookmaker willing to take his larger-scale bets and believes punters will choose to bet elsewhere if Racing Queensland doesn’t alter their attitudes on the minimum bet rule.
“With the recent changes in NSW and Victoria, I now look at Queensland racing and ask whether it’s really worth spending the same amount of time and effort there, when the opportunity to bet in Queensland is significantly less and in some cases totally closed off to me,” O’Sullivan said.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that there will come a time in the future where Racing Queensland look back and lament the decisions of the current Board to encourage a biased wagering landscape and allow market share to be lost to other jurisdictions.”
Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’Landys stated the importance of minimum bet rules, saying any punter should be able to place a “legitimate bet on NSW thoroughbred races… and not have their accounts closed simply because they are successful.”
Racing Minister Grace Grace said she will monitor the situation “with regard to what’s happening in other jurisdictions” despite Racing NSW implementing the rule in 2014 and Racing Victoria following suit in 2016.
I contacted a Racing Queensland board member and put a vote of no confidence in @eliotforbes on behalf of all punters.
— Richard Irvine (@riracing) January 17, 2017
Deputy opposition leader Deb Frecklington criticised the government, saying the decision will send punters money to the southern states.
“We will be at a disadvantage to New South Wales and Victoria because Labor’s policy is to favour multinational corporate bookmakers who aren’t based here and don’t pay tax here,” Frecklington said.
“This is a decision that will cost jobs, force punters interstate and funnel money out of the Queensland racing industry.”
We’ll leave you with this tweet from Mick Neven, who saw the funny side of today’s news.
I just found out Queensland has a Racing Minister named Grace Grace. Whatever else today brings, it’ll need to be spectacular to top that.
— Mick Neven (@MickNeven) January 17, 2017