Tabcorp Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer David Attenborough believes fixed odds betting in Australia will continue to rise at a rapid rate. Speaking at the Asian Racing Conference in Hong Kong, giving a detailed analysis on Tabcorp's position in the Australian wagering market, Attenborough forecast that his company will have fixed odds turnover in excess of $3 billion by next year - a staggering rate of growth considering they have traditionally been a tote operator only.
"The growth in fixed odds as a result now counts for 42 per cent of racing wagering in Australia, up from 29 per cent three years ago," he said.
"Although historically the leading tote operator in Australia, Tabcorp is now also Australia’s largest fixed odds bookmaker and in 2013 financial year we had a turnover of around $1.66 billion in fixed odds and I would think next year it would be north of $3 million."
Attenborough also pointed out the shift away from traditional forms of placing bets with a big move towards digital gambling.
"The growth in digital is not dissimilar to what is being experienced in other industries, the uptake in mobile devices and the convenience they offer the consumer means more and more people are banking, buying and betting on their mobile devices and wagering products are ideal for digital distribution as their is no physical exchange of goods," he said.
"This now makes up 42 per cent of the Australian racing wagering market, up from 32 per cent three years ago.
"The shift has largely occurred at the expense at the traditional telephone and retail betting channels and the retail betting channel does however remain significant and makes up over 50 per cent of Tabcorp’s wagering turnover, with the ability for the customer to use cash remaining a key competitive advantage for retail operators like Tabcorp."
The arrival of corporate bookmakers to the Australian wagering landscape has changed the environment for punters drastically in the past decade and Attenborough feels it has created an unfair playing field for Tabcorp.
"So why is the playing field so fundamentally uneven in Australia? There are three primary areas where conditions these online corporate bookmakers are less rigorous than those state based operators like Tabcorp, the first relates to returns to the racing industry, in every dollar wagered on racing in Victoria the TAB will return on average 8.9 per cent of turnover to racing," he said.
"In NSW the equivalent figure is 5.7 per cent, for corporate bookmakers currently in Australia, the return to racing is on average between 1.6 and 1.8 per cent on turnover due to the current race field legislation regime.
"For the 2013 FYI, on NSW and Victoria TAB operations had turnover of approximately $9 billion on racing, of this, over $650 million was returned to the industry yet of $5 billion of racing turnover from the corporate bookmakers only $80 million was paid to the racing industry.
"The proportion by Tabcorp is four and a half times greater per dollar bet by a customer.
"The second difference relates to taxes paid on wagering, last financial year, Tabcorp’s NSW and Victorian businesses returned $225 million in state taxes yet in the Northern Territory where the bookmakers each have a cap of $250,000, the Territory only collected $2.5 million in state taxes.
"The third and final area I’ll mention is the provision of credit to customers, which is permitted to bookmakers licenced in the Northern Territory but is prohibited and severely restricted for the other state based, primarily tab operators, racings proven funding model in australia continues to be threatened by these and even market conditions."