Letters.
UnnervingBOLA director general Tom Kelly takes BHB chairman Peter Savill to task
WHEN I began reading Peter Savill's letter (July 9) I thought for an unnerving moment that he was actually going to respond directly to my point that he had started off with his financial plan by delcaring that bookmakers and their customers should not be asked to find the extra pounds 80 million he wants for racing, then moved to a position of leaving the Government to decide where the money should come from, before ending with the contention that the burden should, after all, fall on the betting industry and, therefore, punters.
The form book prevailed, however, and instead of agreeing or denying that the goalposts had been moved twice, Savill ducked the issue and announced instead that he had always maintained that racing should receive an increased percentage of horserace betting turnover through the levy, and that "Kelly knows that."
Indeed I do, Peter. But I also know that your first position was that the levy should be boosted through a transfer of betting duty; your second was (I suspect) that you did not have the nerve to say this directly to the Government; and your third became your only option when you were advised that there was no way the Government would divert such a huge chunk of public money into a sport which is already doing well.
Savill went on to say that I do not want bookmakers to pay more (levy) than is currently being paid. Again not true, for I would be delighted to participate in a programme of co-operation with the BHB which led to an increase in racing's share of the betting market and a rise in leviable turnover, leading to a record levy yield.
This would be the enlightened way forward, surely better than trying to make bookmakers pay more for a commodity that has lost some of its competitive edge.
Finally, Savill claims that the current average levy rate is 1.08 per cent of horserace turnover, compared to the 3 per cent he alleges that Ladbroke "happily" pays to American racing from its betting shops in America.
Apart from the fact that Ladbroke does not have any betting shops in the USA, a simple calulation based on the latest Levy Board figures shows that the average levy rate in 1997/98 was 1.27 per cent, while the rate in 1998/99 (if the Board's forecasts are accurate) will be 1.29 per cent. The large companies, of course, will be paying at a significantly higher rate than either of those figures.
TOM KELLY Director General BOLA
Pedestrian
James Underwood was unimpressed by Chris Bell at the ROA AGM
HOWARD WRIGHT's reporting of Chris Bell's appearance at the ROA AGM could easily have given a wrong impression of a performance that could only earn the Ladbrokes boss the description of a damp squib.
Bell's opening presentation was a cursory rehash of selected points from the discredited Cooper & Lybrand report which his organisation, BOLA, sponsored. When questions came he made no new points.
He couldn't even tell his audience just how much (or little) Ladbrokes give to sponsorship in the sport.
Wright described Bell as having rapidly emerged as one of the giants of the bookmaking industry. On this pedestrian showing, racing people need have little fear that their case against the layers will fail.
Bell is one Goliath that the puniest of intellectual Davids can slay.
JAMES UNDERWOOD London SW7
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| Title Annotation: | Sports |
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| Publication: | The Racing Post (London, England) |
| Date: | Jul 10, 1998 |
| Words: | 584 |
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