The $11 million the TAB received yesterday from selling its stake in Radio Works will go directly into funding racing.
It will be handed over to the Racing Industry Board tomorrow, said TAB chairman Rick Bettle.
How much of the $11 million will go into stakemoney is up to the RIB.
"As everyone knows, the TAB has the ability to hold back up to $5 million each year to use for the benefit of the racing industry as it sees fit, if it can make a strong case that it will be of definite benefit," he said.
"In the last couple of years we've held back only $2 million each year.
"There will be those who will say, 'see, the TAB has paid out the $11 million to the RIB and held back $5 million from its profit payout.'"
Even if that is the case, a net $6 million will be injected directly and that is great news.
In selling its 12.2 per cent holding, the TAB received $8.25 for shares it purchased at 45 cents in 1991. Race commentaries on Radio Pacific will be unchanged. The TAB has on-going contracts for race broadcasts, for which it is understood the TAB pays $1 million a year.
* * *
Thank goodness we can all sleep soundly knowing the New Zealand Olympic Committee have our morals in its safe keeping.
That could be what the NZOC believes with its decision not to allow sports betting on the Olympics.
It feels that way despite the fact that for the 206 weeks between successive Olympics we can safely bet on 10 of the 18 sports it oversees at the games - athletics, basketball, baseball, hockey, cycling, equestrian, soccer, tennis, yachting and triathlon.
The NZOC stuck doggedly to its original 1995 decision not to encompass sports betting until the heat from the TAB became so great it last month revisited the issue and confirmed its stance.
"It has the potential to do a great deal of damage to the image of elite athletes and to damage the image of all sports," says the NZOC chief executive Mike Hooper.
"You can draw a parallel of corruption through soccer and pro boxing and look what's happening in cricket at the moment. It is inconsistent with fair play."
And there are those within the TAB organisation who feel the corruption comes from the opposite direction.
"We are not unanimous here that we want betting on the Olympics," said TAB sports betting manager Neil Sorensen.
"We take our betting obligations very seriously and there are those who feel it is not fair to offer betting to our punters on sports with known drug cheats.
"It's not necessarily fair to be betting when someone could be drugged to the eyeballs."
New Zealanders wanting to bet on the Olympics can still do so through Centrebet and other overseas betting agencies.
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