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MARK COLVIN: It's estimated that Australians wagered more than $200 million on horse racing
today, and that's just in official agencies in New South Wales and Victoria.
Today's interest rate decision has also attracted a fair amount of attention from people keen
for a flutter, but those backing favourites haven't done so well.
Ashley Hall reports.
ASHLEY HALL: At its busiest today, the betting network run by Tabcorp has been processing
1300 transactions per second in New South Wales and Victoria.
MATT JENKINS: Yeah always a huge day for us.
ASHLEY HALL: Matt Jenkins is the media manager for TAB Sportsbet.
MATT JENKINS: Early figures just coming through tell us it's - around $33 million was wagered
on the Victorian (inaudible). Of course they bet into the Super TAB pool and fixed odds
betting as well also available. TAB Sportsbet, those numbers just starting to filter through
but fixed odds, just around about the $10 million mark.
ASHLEY HALL: So last year you were looking at more than, well nearly $200 million wagered
on Cup Day with Tabcorp across the board. How do you think this year will have gone
in comparison?
MATT JENKINS: Hopefully it's at least on par with last year but we haven't got all those
numbers at hand just now.
ASHLEY HALL: He says even though Dunaden wasn't the favoured to win, it had been well supported
leading up to the race.
MATT JENKINS: Dunaden was actually the second favourite and there was actually about $5000
just before the barriers crashed back and I can tell you one customer was cheering after
the photo was given. They backed Dunaden early, it was early August. They got 100 to 1 and
they had $1200. They also had that and they had a double as well, winning around $380,000
for an outlay of $1600.
ASHLEY HALL: Takings have been significantly higher today at the betting agency, Centrebet.
Neil Evans is Centrebet's spokesman
NEIL EVANS: We held around about $2 million on the Melbourne Cup alone but the bet numbers
were about 30 per cent up on last year and for the entire 10-way Flemington card, probably
around 20/30 per cent up on last year as well.
So as popular as ever and certainly the arrival of all the overseas horses, they dominated
the finish today. That certainly did nothing to hold the punters back. There was some huge
bets and plenty of them.
ASHLEY HALL: What do you think has been driving that 30 per cent increase?
NEIL EVANS: Look I think it's just the popularity of the Spring carnival, the diversity of betting
options on the internet and just the great value you get.
ASHLEY HALL: The Reserve Bank has identified that at least some sectors of the economy
are struggling and there's been an interest rate, official interest rate cut in line with
that.
How does that compare to a 30 per cent increase in betting? You would think that people perhaps
wouldn't have the money to splurge.
NEIL EVANS: Well people like to pick and choose. They like to be able to control to spend their
own money and, as I say, there's, you know it's not just a matter of turning up and having
a bet on who might win the race and that's the end of it.
There's a million different ways you can have a bet on a race, particularly on Cup Day where
you've got a lot of value and a big field and you know it's the day now where people,
you know, they spread their wings looking to plant their money. It doesn't matter what
it is.
It's not like the old days where you know you might buy a parcel of shares or invest
money in a certain thing and you sit back and you wait to make 10 to 20 per cent. It's
more of a volatile world and I think people look at the betting options and the betting
diversity; they look at it a lot more seriously these days.
ASHLEY HALL: At Centrebet, punters were able to place a combined bet on the outcome of
the interest rate decision and the Melbourne Cup.
NEIL EVANS: I think once they got onto, worked out what the rates were going to do there
was always a huge fancy an overseas runner would win the Melbourne Cup and that's happened
with Dunaden in a nail biter over Red Cadeaux.
So that option was backed in pretty heavily for the 25 point cut into an overseas (inaudible).
I think that closed at around about $2.60 favourite having been backed in from $4.
ASHLEY HALL: Well they do say that if you want to know what's going to happen with interest
rates you should have a look at what the punters are doing.
NEIL EVANS: (Laughs) That's right, yes. So it all lined up beautifully on Cup Day today
because there was a lot of pressure on a rate cut. I think the lagging, the pre-Christmas
retail sales were a big thing behind that and I guess you marry that up with the strength
of these overseas runners over two miles and punters did their homework. And I reckon looking
around Flemington now actually they're pretty happy.
MARK COLVIN: Neil Evans, a spokesman for Centrebet ending Ashley Hall's report.
