The limits the TAB is willing to lose on New Zealand horse racing are being increased in a win for successful punters. Photo / Natalie Slade
New Zealand racing and sports punters will get the opportunity to win more off the TAB and Betcha under rule changes coming into play on Thursday.
The TAB and its new brand Betcha will boost the limits on what punters will be guaranteed to be allowed to win, providing more clarity for its most successful customers.
Bookmakers worldwide restrict how much more successful customers can bet to win on fixed-odds markets to avoid the risk of being cleaned out by professional or smart punters and those using complex computer programmes.
To balance that, some racing jurisdictions have minimum bet laws (MBL), which set the standardised minimum amount gamblers have to be allowed to win on most races or sporting events.
These are sometimes written into law or agreed upon with the racing and/or sporting bodies to ensure punters are given a fair go, but in New Zealand the TAB has got out in front by setting its own MBLs.
They only affect a small percentage of punters because most racing and/or sports bets placed here are for $50 or less, which should be automatically accepted without needing any vetting.
But as sports betting increases its percentage of total New Zealand betting turnover and the market matures, some punters could become more inclined to try to win more than $1000 on major sporting events.
The TAB has moved to increase the MBL, which means more than 99% of bets placed should be automatically approved.
For racing punters, the minimum limits a punter should be able to win on a Saturday thoroughbred or Friday night harness racing meeting will go from $2000 to $5000 for fixed-odds win bets.
That means a punter wanting to back a horse paying $2 to win on the fixed-odds market in a New Zealand gallops race or Friday night harness race will be able to have at least $5000 on it.
Or at least $1000 on a $6 chance, as the limits are on the minimum that punters have to be allowed to win on the bet, with both of those bets having a $5000 profit.
Few punters would, or should, approach those limits and increasing limits is not being marketed by the TAB as an incentive for punters to bet more.
But it will provide certainty at that top level of what those gamblers will be allowed to attempt to win.
For some, that will ease frustrations and ensure most punters stay betting in New Zealand rather than potentially turning to illegal overseas bookmakers, which is not considered a major issue here.
Punters who are not restricted may be allowed to bet more but those in New Zealand who bet to win more than $5000 on any horse race are a small minority.
The MBLs for New Zealand thoroughbred and harness racing on other days of the week will stay at $2000, with those meetings having less overall turnover.
The MBLs for Australian metropolitan thoroughbred meetings will increase to $2000 and for other Australian gallops they will be $1000, the same limit as Australian harness races.
Australian greyhound races will have an MBL of $500 on fixed-odd win bets.
The MBLs do not apply to place betting but the Herald understands people will be allowed to win a minimum of $1000 on most New Zealand horse racing place bets.
The $2000 MBL will now also apply to Futures win bets on New Zealand thoroughbreds and harness racing.
While the MBLs will be available to all punters, they will only be for bets placed on TAB accounts, with those limits not applying to the Betcha brand.
For sports gamblers, the MBLs will be to win at least $1000 on named major markets in 12 sports, and the key fixtures/tournaments in those sports, when bets are placed with TAB accounts.
Betcha’s MBLs for sport will align with those available on the TAB sites. However, rather than being known as Punters Promise they will be branded as the Betcha Guarantee, with the same $1000 amount for named major markets in 11 sports on key fixtures/tournaments.
The limits won’t apply to obscure sports, which are often only bet on as novelties by New Zealanders.
Horse and dog racing will not be part of the Betcha Guarantee.
The new MBLs, particularly the $5000 ones for NZ gallops on Saturdays and Friday night harness, will be world-leading.
They come just weeks after the TAB and its business partner Entain, which operates the betting business, were granted a virtual monopoly on racing and sports betting in New Zealand via a new law banning overseas bookmakers from accepting bets from New Zealand-based punters.
The new limits appear to have been “soft launched” over recent days but officially start on Thursday.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.