GRNSW has just released its Annual Report for FY25. As usual the report uses questionable data to highlight gambling-driven successes while glossing over animal welfare and financial failings.
CPG asked a number of experts to provide a quick summary exposing what really lies behind the industry spin.
Below is a quick explainer from a gambling insider responding to GRNSW’s boasts about a so-called financial turnaround. For context, this amounts to a $1.5m profit following a woeful $16.8m loss posted in FY24. This was despite a minimum of $40m in taxpayer funding as reported recently by the Parliamentary Library including that spent on GRNSW’s failed attempt to make their tracks safe.
GRNSW has tried to pre-empt the findings of the Drake Inquiry by announcing its plan to cut the state’s racetracks from 25 to an ultimate 12. This was the recommendation of a Deloitte Australia report commissioned by GRNSW in yet another attempt to make the industry sustainable.
The Deloitte report states “12 TAB tracks with an average of ~1.7 race meetings per week per track would be needed to meet current demand for race meetings.” None of the usual hypocrisy around community engagement or the importance of greyhound racing to regional communities.
As our gambling insider says “The value of any particular race meeting depends on its broadcast timeslot and whether it is exclusively broadcast on Sky Racing 1. Those meetings in poor timeslots are now being culled.” More below.
GRNSW: the real gambling facts
This isn’t new turnover, it will have come at the expense of whichever other interstate meeting previously held the timeslot and was moved to Sky 2. This is the squeeze we’re seeing everywhere, remove low turnover meetings that are rural and during the day and fight for the marquee night spots. Irony is that you could find plenty of supporters of greyhound racing in the rural communities that are losing tracks and you could barely find any in the areas where it is actually profitable to run a meeting.
The best news for GRNSW is that they managed to cut prizemoney paid out by around 8%, I’m not sure how they’ve managed to do that especially with more races. What we don’t like to see is GAP funding was cut by $2.2mil and the amount spent on Animal Welfare was down from $510k to $300k. You would think that some GAP facilities would be closed as the dozen or so tracks are closed down but it’s still the same number of dogs that need to be rehomed. Pathetic!
There was also a 382% reduction in what they spent on track upgrades, down $7.4m.
Continuing GRNSW financial woes, their major sponsor Entain is only months away from a huge fine from Austrac which may put their future involvement in Australian Racing in doubt. We saw in December last year Entain trying to get out of the deal or at least trying to re-negotiate a lower price.
So while you’ve reduced your expenses by cuts to animal welfare (not a good look), your revenue is only just holding steady, and your major sponsorship deal is at risk, what do you do to cut costs. The answer they’ve come up with is closing down tracks that would be too expensive to keep upgrading and provide less value in terms of wagering turnover.
The value of any particular race meeting is all down to what time is it on and whether it is exclusively broadcast on Sky Racing 1. In Victoria and WA they’ve already been quick to cull meetings on at poor timeslots or where they are broadcast on Sky 2. These tracks closing down will do the same thing and you’ll only see further consolidation as other Racing Bodies feel the pinch.