Greyhound racing is being subsidised by mug gamblers
LAST Saturday produced an extraordinary range of betting volumes. It also illustrated where the code's income is coming from.
The four main greyhound meetings were at Warragul (eight Cup heats), Wentworth Park (Paws of Thunder final) plus The Meadows and Richmond. That leaves aside a lesser meeting at Ipswich and a late night selection from Mandurah.
They all had to compete with three gallops meetings and seven harness meetings. So that's a total of sixteen meetings in a five hour period on the peak betting night of the week.
The oddball amongst those was Warragul, which usually races on other days of the week, mainly Tuesday when it has its better fields and higher prize money. However this time GRV adopted its now-customary practice of shifting Cup series meetings away from their normal slot into Friday or Saturday nights. Apparently, this is an attempt to achieve better figures but rarely does it work. Often the oncourse patronage helps out, of course, but here we have used NSW TAB figures as they represent a more independent viewpoint.
Generally, apart from a couple of races at Wentworth Park, the better dogs were at Warragul where the eight Cup heats offered $5,000 first prizes, the same as a normal Saturday night at The Meadows but a little higher than the standard prize at Wenty.
But consider where the money went on the Win tote.
Mug punters on dogs, true, because with those win pools u are betting against yourself, why bother especially in Queensland where WP could be $1300 I won’t bet again until we get a National Pool and I understand the fly in the ointment is the NSW Tory Government
imagine what the pools would be without the mug punters.
Recreational and Problem punters is a more revealing term than “Mug Punter” as wagering can be a cheap form of escapism for all monied class of people. (except for problem gamblers).
Mug punters on dogs, true, because with those win pools u are betting against yourself, why bother especially in Queensland where WP could be I won’t bet again until we get a National Pool and I understand the fly in the ointment is the NSW Tory Government
imagine what the pools would be without the mug punters.
Recreational and Problem punters is a more revealing term than “Mug Punter” as wagering can be a cheap form of escapism for all monied class of people. (except for problem gamblers).