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No off-course betting in BTC due to systemic failure
In & Around: By: Sharan Kumar
January 14 , 2022
   
   

To say that Bangalore Turf Club has fallen on bad days is being anachronistic. The focus of the administrators in the last few years was to confront every section of the racing fraternity. Crores of rupees were spent as legal fees to fight issues that could have been resolved through dialogue.
The former Chairman who was the legal sub-committee chairman last year enjoyed engaging the club in litigations. So much so, that the present mandarins who are in damage control mode, are hand-tied to put money on infrastructure which is the need of the hour.

Punters expressed their ire on Wednesday and on Thursday as the tote system collapsed and they were unable to place their bets after paying an exorbitant entry fee of Rs 500. This has resulted in the club cancelling the off-course betting operations on Chennai races on Friday. With the weekend curfew setting in, the club has three days to work on restoring the tote system in a way that it does not become dysfunctional every other day. Any cancelled betting operation has a bearing on the economics of the club.

If there is a need for an overhaul of the system, the club should not hesitate to do so. The club would do well to reduce its litigation, cancel its forthcoming Derby party and put all the money on restoring the system with replacement of equipment without delay. After all, the tote system worked efficiently for more than three decades. The club used to do a turnover of Rs 2000 crores on the totalizator pools without facing technical glitches. Unfortunately, the focus was lost in the last few years, with extraneous issues taking precedence. The club made no attempt to retain the services of those who were thorough with the system.

 
   


In BTC, the quirks of the administrators are such that they don’t post people according to their ability or training. The club trained a person for 10 years to become the handicapper but later transferred him to the dispatch section when he was ready to take over!. Another person who was very good with the tote system has been transferred to the racing section. The result is there for all to see.

Apart from the fact that the club is loathing to spend money on essential things, possibly there is a sharp fall in the quality of the people employed by the club. Every department was headed by a competent person in the not so long distant past but the system has been dismantled with those at the helm who had an agenda fiddled with the system. Since these people ran the show unchecked as the members rarely bothered to view things critically, the deterioration is there for all to see. The club’s principal finance comes from the club operated pools and the entry fee that the punters pay.

The client base of Bangalore Turf Club is much more than any club in India. The attendance at the races is always very high. This has continued even in these Covid times and despite the exorbitant entry fee. In the long run, the club policies are bound to discourage more people from coming to the racecourse as alternate channels for betting are getting popular increasingly.

A punter needs to pay Rs 15,000 a month as an entry fee and other sundries. This is a recurring expense. And if he does not perform well in the races, then it will have a debilitating effect on him and he may be forced to stay out. This will eventually lead to the downfall of the club because the economy of the club is dependent on hard-core punters who are the backbone of the sport. The club doesn’t provide them with decent facilities either to sit and enjoy racing or back horses without discomfort.

 
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