Benefit Of Bet365

[Trees]

Got to confess to watching on Bet365 rather than going out to some live matches. I know lots of others doing the same.

 

So there's no commentary. So what? Better no commentary than the clown on Eurosport or Itchy and Scratchy on SkySports. You don't get commentary in the stadiums either (and when you do, it's off idiots like Peter York at Coventry, which is most undesirable)

Would you really have gone to these meetings?

[arthur cross]

Bet365 are not doing the streaming. AtTheRaces are doing the streaming and at the moment Bet365 are the only bookies buying the stream from them. AtTheRaces is owned by Sky. It is part of the new Sky deal done this year.

Correct ... but where a big problem appears to have occurred is that when the BSPA or GoSpeed agreed to include AtTheRaces streaming in the new Sky deal, the speedway folk got the impression that anyone would have to place a bet on a particular race (or at least place a bet on the result of the whole meeting) before they were able to access that betting company's live streaming which that company was receiving from ATR.

 

In that way, the more people that connected to the stream, the more money would be getting bet on the action and, therefore (unless the bookies got their odds horribly wrong), the more profitable it would be to stream the action.

 

I don't know whether BSPA/GoSpeed get a one-off fee from ATR-streaming within this part of the new Sky deal or whether there's a sliding scale of the fee depending on the volume of betting ... equally, I don't know whether the speedway folk misunderstood ATR's explanation of how it would work, or whether ATR just explained it rather vaguely.

 

But what is clear is that once ATR's streaming department had access to speedway meetings, they offered this feed to their well-established bookmaking customers with seemingly no restrictions (like "bet-before-you-watch") on how the bookies used this feed once they'd ordered it.

 

Thus, since this season started, bet365 have been streaming ATR's speedway feed in the same way they stream countless foreign football matches, tennis matches and all sorts of other sports at all sorts of times of the day while operating a policy that as long as you've stuck £5 in an account with them, you've access to all the streams regardless of whether you place a bet with them or not.

 

The logic of such a policy at bet365's end in that by letting their customers see things like weather conditions before requiring them to have a bet, it builds up their customers' confidence that they're making a really good selection when they place their bets ... also, while you're enjoying watching something they're streaming, you're also only a click away from having a bet on other events as well as the one you've intended to watch in the first place.

 

All perfectly understandable from bet365's end and, also for example, no problem either for a tennis promoter in Austria who wasn't expecting any spectators from Leeds through his turnstiles so can regard even a tiny slice of profits from their bets as a complete bonus.

 

But while it's still perfectly understandable from bet365's end on a speedway night, the trackside promoter now needs any tiny slices of betting profits (or any flat fee for streaming the meeting) to overtake the missing turnstile money from anyone who's elected (most likely on a damp night) to settle for the "really cheap while accepting it's not as good as being there" alternative of watching via bet365.

 

Providing enough speedway fans (both in this country and abroad) are actually betting on the action rather than regarding it as a free way of watching something they used to pay at a turnstile to watch, then the British speedway promoter joins the Austrian tennis promoter in giving the whole deal the thumbs-up.

 

But when it came to weighing up the pros-&-cons of any streaming deal a few months ago, any estimations within British speedway about the amount of "missing turnstile money" while under the impression of "bet-before-you-watch" may well be uncomfortably different from what's proving to be the amount of "missing turnstile money" while under the actual scenario of "transfer £5 from your bank and then watch as much as you like even if you've no intention whatsoever of having a bet" !!

Edited June 5, 2014 by arthur cross

[robert72]

Speedway has been on a massive downhill slope way before bet365 came along.

[LagutaRacingFan]

If Bet365 didn't do streaming, stadiums around the country would be packed

[Aaron Reuben Smith]

I don't care if it's streamed or not and I don't care how much it costs, nothing beats a race night at Lynn at the mo. The best reserves in the league. The best heat leaders and the most up and coming 'second strings'. They don't always make it easy for themselves but they always give it everything and it's always entertaining. I think if you are a fan you support your team through thick and thin. Many people complain about the FTR and the new format but in my opinion it's just made the racing more exciting as racers of equal averages are racing together. Appears some fans only sing when they are winning as they say

[greyhoundp]

From what i read on the BSPA site prior to the season, Speedway receives NO fee from Bet 365 in 2014, but future seasons will be necotiable if Bet 365 are happy.

 

Great Go Speed pocket more and the Clubs lose even more, if live streaming loses clubs say 50 spectators per meeting, thats getting on for around 1k per meeting, thats the minimum Teams need to be getting to stream it live.

 

What Russell (go speed) need to be looking at is not offering to a single company, but to be offering something like BAGS as in greyhound racing, This is the service that keeps greyhound racing afloat, and coverage is provided by SIS, this is offered to every Bookie not to a sole Bookie, and in return the Bookies pay a fee, Im told Bookies pay around 10k (not sure) per meeting for providing this service, Salty on here may be able to give an actual figure. So Speedway needs to be looking along those guidelines for each Live meeting thats streamed, and at least 50% of that needs to be getting to the Clubs ie 5k equating to around 250 spectators generally, anything less than that, and Speedway is selling itself short.

Edited June 5, 2014 by greyhoundp

[Reliant Robin]

From what i read on the BSPA site prior to the season, Speedway receives NO fee from Bet 365 in 2014, but future seasons will be necotiable if Bet 365 are happy.

 

Great Go Speed pocket more and the Clubs lose even more, if live streaming loses clubs say 50 spectators per meeting, thats getting on for around 1k per meeting, thats the minimum Teams need to be getting to stream it live.

 

What Russell (go speed) need to be looking at is not offering to a single company, but to be offering something like BAGS as in greyhound racing, This is the service that keeps greyhound racing afloat, and coverage is provided by SIS, this is offered to every Bookie not to a sole Bookie, and in return the Bookies pay a fee, Im told Bookies pay around 10k (not sure) per meeting for providing this service, Salty on here may be able to give an actual figure. So Speedway needs to be looking along those guidelines for each Live meeting thats streamed, and at least 50% of that needs to be getting to the Clubs ie 5k equating to around 250 spectators generally, anything less than that, and Speedway is selling itself short.

Would you not think that this is the long term aim as it seems a fairly obvious one to me. This is the first season with the streaming - bookies are not all just going to pick up an unproven product and pay for it. I would imagine this is the first season of proving the product and figures and a 'foot through the door' on other bookies.

 

The fact that the deal is with ATR and the stream through Bet365 shows that it is intended to sell on to several. Short term pain for hopefully a long term gain.

[arthur cross]

Easiest to reply to both "greyhoundp" and "Reliant Robin" in one go rather than a lengthy use of bandwidth quoting both their posts above ...

 

I don't think it's quite £10,000 a meeting that the dog tracks receive from BAGS ... it's probably nearer £6,000 to £8,000 in the current 5-year-deal that runs out at the end of December 2015 so we're not far away from negotiations beginning to gather pace for the next deal from 2016 onwards.

 

But BAGS (the Bookmakers' Afternoon Greyhound Service) has always been about a partnership between the bookies and dog tracks in a sport where betting is such a fundamental aspect of that particular sport's business plan ... in its earliest years (well before the UK's first all-weather horse racing track opened at Lingfield in 1989). BAGS dog racing was also the bookies' saviour in terms of keeping some live action available during the harshest spells of bad weather because far fewer greyhound meetings are lost to rain/snow/frost.

 

The fee paid for each meeting reflects that the coverage is being shown in around 8,000 shops nationwide so it works out that each shop is paying roughly £1 to show each meeting to its punters ...given each meeting involves at least 11 races and sometimes 14, you're talking about each shop paying a few pence per race ... meanwhile, the track uses about a third of its BAGS-fee on the prize money for the races and can use the rest of that fee to prop up its general costs of running its stadium.

 

But speedway hasn't a hope in hell of commanding such generous funding from the bookies because betting simply isn't anywhere near being a fundamental aspect of the whole business model for speedway ... instead, it's a niche activity within speedway as a whole and it's never going to be much bigger.

 

Think about it ... how many people attending a horse racing or greyhound meeting have a bet, and the answer's nearly everyone ... now consider a speedway crowd and even if there was betting readily available to them at the track, the proportion of them getting involved would still be way below the percentage for a horse racing or dog racing crowd.

 

The speedway promoter has just as good a case as the greyhound promoter for needing a hefty fee to compensate for spectators watching the action away from the track itself ... but you're only to get that fee if whoever's paying the fee can also justify it being worthwhile within their own business and that's why the bookies will stump up several thousand quid for a dog meeting at the same venue as a speedway meeting for which they'll then only be prepared to pay peanuts.

 

The speedway authorities have tried to grab their small slice of the betting market without having much clue about how their own sport does (or more accurately, doesn't) fit into the wider sports-betting world ... as a good guide, most Speedway Grand Prix meetings merit a few paragraphs in the Racing Post tucked into the corner of a page whereas every dog meeting shown on Sky gets 2 pages for its racecard/formbook and at least another 2 pages by the time you add up the space for the tipsters' comments and betting previews attached to that meeting.

 

It's all very well saying this season's streaming is "short term pain for long term gain" providing there's a realistic hope of a big enough long term gain on the horizon to justify any earlier deficits ... more likely, there's some pocket money just about visible on the horizon that's unlikely to cover the shortfalls suffered on the way to reaching it.

 

And I refer you back to my post earlier this morning ... as far as I can work out, the speedway authorities reckoned this season's streaming would be "bet-before-you-watch" rather than what's effectively free streaming providing you're prepared to lend bet365 £5 of your money to activate an account with them.

Edited June 5, 2014 by arthur cross

[Reliant Robin]

Whilst I can't see it bringing millions into the sport, I don't think it's unrealistic to envisage 8-10 bookies Worldwide to be paying £500 per meeting each.

 

In my view that would compensate a few times over for those that would have gone but chose to watch the stream instead. I'm sure figures are traceable by those in control but I'd hazard a guess that 85% - 90% of those watching the streams were never likely to be going to the relevant meeting in the first place.

[arthur cross]

Whilst I can't see it bringing millions into the sport, I don't think it's unrealistic to envisage 8-10 bookies Worldwide to be paying £500 per meeting each.

In that case, you're living in cloud-cuckoo land about how much value any individual betting company would put on the right to show any individual British domestic speedway meeting.

 

Working on a profit margin of 10% on all bets taken, you're reckoning there are 8-to-10 bookies somewhere in the world that are each confident of attracting £5,000 of bets on, for example, tonight's Swindon-v-Leicester meeting to justify each of them stumping up their £500 rights fee.

 

Sweet dreams in your worldwide search given that there's no speedway in two of the world's most lucrative betting regions (Indian sub-continent and the Far East) and hardly any speedway in the country that's home to all the Las Vegas sportsbooks.

 

Yes, a few of us on this forum like having a bet on speedway and discussing whether particular odds are good value or not ... we're a drop in the ocean to any betting company as far as its overall business plan in concerned.

[Trees]

I would absolutely hate to see the day that betting becomes massive in speedway, not so sure it would though given it's so open to corruption.

[greyhoundp]

Arthur Cross, i bow to your superior knowledge on most aspects of whats involved with betting, however Greyhound racing is NOT staged in the vast majority of Asian countries, maybe a little straights racing in Pakistan, some sort in Korea, and definately in Macau.

You may or may not be aware most of the gamblers in these countries would bet on 2 flies walking up a window, if it involved them being able to win.

To use Kelvins favourite phrase, I would suggest if Speedway betting was to be opened up to the the Asian markets as a Betting/Gambling Sport the few pounds the UK bets on Speedway would be multiplied many times over. I say again dont sell the Sport short to the Bookies, by giving Sole rights for a minimal return.

[oldace]

Arthur Cross, i bow to your superior knowledge on most aspects of whats involved with betting, however Greyhound racing is NOT staged in the vast majority of Asian countries, maybe a little straights racing in Pakistan, some sort in Korea, and definately in Macau.

You may or may not be aware most of the gamblers in these countries would bet on 2 flies walking up a window, if it involved them being able to win.

To use Kelvins favourite phrase, I would suggest if Speedway betting was to be opened up to the the Asian markets as a Betting/Gambling Sport the few pounds the UK bets on Speedway would be multiplied many times over. I say again dont sell the Sport short to the Bookies, by giving Sole rights for a minimal return.

 

 

They would have to stay up late to bet on live speedway, it takes place about 3 in the morning

[The Voice Of Reason]

First and foremost, I would never watch some two bob stream over going to a meeting; particularly if it was my team. That said, I can fully appreciate why people do it.

 

Thinking back, I used to follow Hackney on Fridays, then often follow them away on Saturdays (when many other BL tracks raced), then it was off to Rye House on Sunday afternoon, and Crayford on Tuesdays. Sometimes I'd pop along to Arena Essex or Wimbledon on a Thursday if they had a decent meeting. And quite honestly, that was a long time back in the very early 80's, having just passed my driving test. I think admission would have been around the £2.50 mark.

 

Comparing £2.50 from 1981 and basing it upon about the best indicator that we have available - i.e. The Retail Price Index (RPI) then using the most recent figures available (2011), £2.50 in 1981 converts to £8.36 in today's World (to be fair, add on a few pence for the past few years 2011-14 where inflation has been quite low).

 

So even if we say it's now £8.50, that's quite a lot less than the £16 - £20 that we are being charged for admission these days.

 

To this end, it's quite simple to know the reason behind falling attendances. I truly don't think the finger can only be pointed at the promoters - who to the most part, always try their best and want to run a successful business. I also don't think it's the fault of Sky or Bet365 (who I've only heard about recently).

 

I think part of the actual reason is simply people do not have the amount of disposable income, after bills are paid, to be able to afford Speedway on a regular basis. Younger families, and the vast majority of pensioners, possibly have less available funds than most.

 

Then there's changes to society as well to come into the mix. Think back to 1981 guys. How much money did you have on loans, credit cards, etc. Did your family have two cars? Did you even have a mortgage - the councils used to actually build some pretty nice homes for people back then. Did you have a mobile phone bill, an internet bill and a Sky package? Were you paying through the nose for utilities such as water, gas and electricity? And let's not even get onto the price for petrol/diesel.

 

That said, I'm convinced that people would attend more frequently if, quite simply, they could AFFORD IT. When Lakeside gave free admission a few years back, I'm sure that many of you that watched the meeting on Sky witnessed the absolute gridlocked Dartford Bridge and local roads. People came from miles around to watch Speedway - because it was free but ALSO because they clearly had an interest in watching the sport. I experienced the same last year when Birmingham had a free night. Perry Barr was absolutely heaving. Now, I'm not for one moment suggesting that we take the turnstiles down to the local scrap yard. But what I am suggesting is for some promoter somewhere to bite the bullet and reduce admission costs to something that people can afford on a regular basis.

 

If my local clubs in The Midlands charged £8.50, then there's every chance that I'd be rediscovering my youth and visiting them all during the week. But I just know that isn't going to happen.

 

Meanwhile, what is most worrying are comments on here that people would watch Bet 365 instead of going to their local track. If the promoters cannot retain their current fan base, then I truly believe that the days of Speedway Clubs operating professionally within the UK, are actually numbered.

 

People in the UK are now probably more cost-conscious than at any time in their lives. Price drives our decision-making probably more now than ever before. We have all suffered through austerity, and want the best value possible for the least amount.

 

Working as a travel agent, I talk to some customers in my business that say they can book cheaper online themselves. This is simply because with the advent of the Internet, everyone believes that can be a travel agent, or an insurance agent, etc. So you may wonder how I survive. Well basically I book a niche type of holiday (Worldwide Motorhomes) and deal with people that have a lot of disposable income; coupled with the fact that many people feel more comfortable dealing with a 'one-stop shop' travel agent; or simply can't be bothered booking it themselves. However, these people are in quite a minority in today's society. And I doubt whether many of these people with such disposable income are Speedway Supporters! The vast majority of us want 'bang for our buck' and if we don't perceive that we are getting it, we'll shop around and look elsewhere. And who can blame us?

 

Something HAS to change. And that 'something' is a comparable reduction in the admission price - irrespective of coverage via other media.

Edited June 5, 2014 by The Voice Of Reason

[arthur cross]

Arthur Cross, i bow to your superior knowledge on most aspects of whats involved with betting, however Greyhound racing is NOT staged in the vast majority of Asian countries, maybe a little straights racing in Pakistan, some sort in Korea, and definately in Macau.

You may or may not be aware most of the gamblers in these countries would bet on 2 flies walking up a window, if it involved them being able to win.

To use Kelvins favourite phrase, I would suggest if Speedway betting was to be opened up to the the Asian markets as a Betting/Gambling Sport the few pounds the UK bets on Speedway would be multiplied many times over. I say again dont sell the Sport short to the Bookies, by giving Sole rights for a minimal return.

As "Oldace" has pointed out above, British speedway's time difference with the Indian sub-continent or further east into the Asian markets means it would have to alter its meeting times to cash in on the most conveninent time for those regions to bet ... it's the only reason why both the top Spanish and Italian football divisions a few seasons ago introduced a lunchtime kickoff in their own country every Sunday (12-noon in Spain, 12.30 in Italy) to suit mid-evening Far East viewing because it's totally alien to Spanish/Italian fans to turn up for lunchtime games.

 

But for speedway to make inroads into that region's betting markets, it would have to fight for any foothold of that region's betting companies' sporting interests.

 

Good luck trying to persuade any of those companies to even dip their toe into something like speedway when there's no existing awareness of the sport among the general public compared to the widespread media coverage of cricketing legends or big football clubs.

 

Betting's big on cricket and football over there because it gives the public an extra buzz to their viewing of something they were highly likely to watch anyway ... actually, that's pretty much a worldwide principle for recreational betting (as opposed to professional gambling) in that most bets come from people who'd be watching the event anyway but like to spice up their viewing a bit further.

 

But your average punter in Karachi, Bangalore, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur is going to need a huge amount of encouragement to want to bet on the Swindon Robins and Leicester Lions going round and round in circles within a set of rules completely new to them.

 

I agree with you that they'd bet enthusiastically on your example of 2 flies climbing the nearest wall because they know already what a fly looks like, they know already what a wall looks like and, beyond that, the only rule they need to worry about is that the first fly up the wall wins !! ... if the format's that simple, it's an easy step to generate betting enthusiasm.

 

Most fly-climbing races I've seen haven't developed into an argument between the flies' managers just before halfway whether it's too wet or not to continue that race far enough for it to be declared an official result, only for more heavy rain to abandon the contest a few inches away from it becoming offical ... which in speedway terms is what happened at Perry Barr on Monday night !!

 

The meeting steward on Sky has an impossible job already in dodgy conditions without worrying about whether a bunch of gambling triads will come looking for him afterwards if he makes a decision that wipes out their profits !!

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 

Tremendous post by "The Voice of Reason" while I was writing my post ... no surprise that you've had to adapt and niche-market your travel agency to successfully adjust to so many more people self-booking their holidays.

 

You're right about free-nights packing out speedway tracks compared to usual-size crowds but they're only fully useful to clubs who can cash-in on what's known as the "secondary spend" of the extra crowd purchasing programmes, food and drink once they're beyond the free turnstiles ... sadly, most British clubs rent their stadiums so they're limited to the extent they can grab that secondary-spend rather than it heading towards the stadium landlords.

 

But the bigger problem is how very far you have to discount the normal admission price before the "freebie crowd" turn out in their thousands ... the relationship between price-tag and size-of-crowd is nothing like as simple an equation as "halve the price and double the number will turn up to create the same total gate receipts".

 

I'd reckon you need to go well below half-price to start seeing reasonable upturns in crowd-size ... for example, around £5 instead of £15-to-£18 ... but even then, the total gate receipts are probably down because the upturn in numbers isn't big enough to cover the huge discount.

 

Back in 2004, in the early days of internet streaming, I was involved with a media company streaming British ice-hockey not just for viewers in this country but also to North American viewers watching our evening games in their daytime with the interest of all the British clubs having a few USA or Canadian imports.

 

We began by offering free access to drum up a customer base that appeared comfortably profitable in due course but got a hell of a shock when trying to charge just £3 a game (or the US/Canadian-dollar equivalents) was enough to frighten away almost 90% of that customer base who simply moved onto anything else on the internet that was free instead ... and that's still the sort of problem speedway faces now in that loads of people like watching it but far too relatively few of them want to pay enough for it !!

Edited June 5, 2014 by arthur cross

[Reliant Robin]

In that case, you're living in cloud-cuckoo land about how much value any individual betting company would put on the right to show any individual British domestic speedway meeting.

 

Working on a profit margin of 10% on all bets taken, you're reckoning there are 8-to-10 bookies somewhere in the world that are each confident of attracting £5,000 of bets on, for example, tonight's Swindon-v-Leicester meeting to justify each of them stumping up their £500 rights fee.

 

Sweet dreams in your worldwide search given that there's no speedway in two of the world's most lucrative betting regions (Indian sub-continent and the Far East) and hardly any speedway in the country that's home to all the Las Vegas sportsbooks.

 

Yes, a few of us on this forum like having a bet on speedway and discussing whether particular odds are good value or not ... we're a drop in the ocean to any betting company as far as its overall business plan in concerned.

Far from being in cloud-cuckoo land as you've so politely put it, I am aware of what individual betting companies will pay for other minority sports - the figure I've stated is far from unrealistic.

 

8-10 individual companies, who knows. But you can be sure that others are keeping an eye on whether Bet365 keep things going as they're hardly likely to continue if they're making no money from it. It usually needs one bookmaker to get others attention.

[oldace]

 

Edited June 5, 2014 by Oldace

[raymondbudd]

Certainly one of the best threads I've seen on this site in years, with some extremely informative and coherent points being made.

 

As a regular fan and businessman, I agree with the view that any pot of cash at the end of the rainbow on this poject simply does not exist (for the reasons given by Arthur Cross). I find it incredible that on one hand promoters are moaning about attendences, yet at the same time offer a streaming service that fans can access for next to nothing.

 

On the issue of entrance costs, I am very fortunate that my income allows me do pretty much anything I want (even buy a club if I wanted). However I am not going to spend £50+ to take my family out for the evening in some shabby stadium, with poor food and watch sub standard (drawn out) racing. For much less (entrance) I can take my wife and kids to the T20 Cricket, go to the restaurant (spending more) and generaly be more entertained by the sporting fare on offer.

 

It also fair to say that as a child/youngster I was as about as hardcore speedway fan as you can get.

[oldace]

We began by offering free access to drum up a customer base that appeared comfortably profitable in due course but got a hell of a shock when trying to charge just £3 a game (or the US/Canadian-dollar equivalents) was enough to frighten away almost 90% of that customer base who simply moved onto anything else on the internet that was free instead ... and that's still the sort of problem speedway faces now in that loads of people like watching it but far too relatively few of them want to pay enough for it !!

 

Thats an issue in all business' though. While free or cheap will always get you the initial market share turning that into steady customers isn't always easy.

 

You must avoid the stigma of "cheap" because once you are perceived as such it is difficult to up costs, customers initially paying a pound for an item have a habit of preferring to take their custom elsewhere when the normal £2.00 price kicks in, even if that normal price is no cheaper elsewhere

Edited June 5, 2014 by Oldace

[A ORLOV]

If the clubs are concerned about a drop in attendance because of Bet365 and any payment they may get from this organisation they should have made sure that the meeting being shown was not announced till a short period before the start time.

How many people now stay at home and watch rather than go to a meeting ?.

I would think the majority watching would not be going to the meeting anyway. The weather, cost of entry and travel, teams of guests and long drawn out meetings are more of a factor in stopping fans going rather than the option to see a meeting via Bet365.