Offshore gambling interests that are providing rebates as high as 15 percent to high rollers were a hot topic, officially and unofficially, at symposium racing gatherings in Arizona yesterday.
Murray Acklin, chairman of the New Zealand Racing Board and the Asian Racing Conference, said some 400 sites around the world handled some $7 billion in bets last year. Acklin told the symposium that racing provided the product while the pirates reaped the rewards, but he also said it was probably too late to stop the process. His personal solution was for jurisdictions to lower takeout. The matter was also discussed, with deep concern, in several of the satellite meetings conducted in conjunction with the symposium.
In another symposium panel, Leif Almgren of Sweden's horseracing totalisator board ATG, and Paul Cross, general manager of wagering development for Australia's TAB, told of their nation's pioneering progress in developing Internet wagering.