The NZTAB. The turd in a gold mine

Don’t let the likely demise of the NZTAB kid you.

It’s of their own making.

A 50 year old, slightly overweight “Darren” living in Paraparaumu knocks off from work at 5pm, jumps in the car, goes 4 blocks down the road to the local piss-parlour, parks the car, gets out, stumbles slightly under his own weight, regains his composure, and then, almost elegantly, strides straight into…

wait for it…

A William Hill betting shop…

and if you believe that then Elvis is singing his greatest hits tonight at the Waipu Memorial Hall.

Monopolies are powerful things in the right hands. Free of regulation they can actively pursue ever increasing margins. Ask Warren Buffet what he likes about them, he’s got 75 billion reasons why he likes companies with monopolistic qualities about them.

And yet, for all it’s competitive advantages, the NZTAB couldn’t make a decent go of business. It fell into a gold mine and came out with a wheelbarrow full of burnt turds.    

If the NZTAB preaches that they don’t have aspects of monopoly about their business then they lie. If they roll out the “we’ve lost our competitive advantage to overseas bookmakers” argument then you have the right to swiftly kick them in the gonads and walk away without fear of consequence. It’s been akin to watching Terror To Love get a 30m head start on a bunch of maidens at Timaru and then witnessing the driver deliberately throw himself from the sulky when the tapes fly back!  

"In terms of their harness racing performance the on-course TAB offering has been awful for decades"

There’s been no education of the new punter, there’s been no desire to drive new entrants into the punting side of game by actively engaging in the social aspect of turning up to a race course and having a wager. There’s been no on-course "odds booster" concept to help drive attendance and support the periphery income streams associated with racing clubs…

Novelty betting concepts have been non-existent.

I’ve never seen a “beat the bookie” concept on course with a TAB bookie representative, no attempt to provide the racegoer with a good old “show us your mathematical dukes” and “let’s have a piece of your market” mentality. There’s never been a “best NZ bookie” competition that pits NZTAB bookies against each other over a nights action (and I don’t care if your the only bookie allowed, get three of your “risk aversion agents” to Addington, set up their markets on the lawn and let them go at it for a card against the common punter )

Free bets on course entry or on-course betting specials on feature races would have come under a “totally foreign ideas” heading.  

Their much vaunted new fixed odds betting system (which cost about the national annual GDP figure of the Republic of Burundi) was met with about as much enthusiasm as a scheduled brain haemorrhage. Its implied value on the balance sheet laughable. It failed to deliver any ground breaking advancements in the way punters wager and ignored the growing trend of involving syndication / crowd funding or punters club aspects into its betting offering (a much needed advancement that could have opened up potentially hundreds of bespoke betting options for both facilitator and audience)

They took years to accept some of the negative social outcomes of addictive gambling and address it by actively promoting healthy behavior when wagering (something I urged them to do when rung out of the blue by a Wellington based research group a years back) Social goodwill does exist and can be acquired by actively tackling the little less glamorous or accepted aspects of ones operation, sadly this was something the TAB failed to appreciate for far too long.      

Their relationship with racing clubs seemed distant rather than complementary and growth focused.

If their efforts in relation to harness racing were mirrored elsewhere in their wagering landscape then it's little wonder they’ve failed so badly…  

"The divestment or outsourcing of the TAB business to overseas interests will have its own consequences"

The NZTAB got stale and lost because it become just that. An immovable, grossly overweight, top-heavy, inflexible establishment that failed to appreciate what its customer base both wanted and would want once introduced to it. They didn’t get off their arse quick enough and do something about winning.

Ironically the only ticket it didn’t have was one on itself!

Don’t get me wrong, most of the front-line people working the for TAB seem lovely. They’re generally pleased to see you and competent enough to make sure you’re on before the mobile arm pulls away. But this isn’t about the soldier in the trench, it’s about military intelligence and the 4-star general that’s suppose to be running the show and calling the shots.

All in all it’s been a mess. The fact that it’s near enough to being done shouldn’t exactly be met with any fanfare either. A divestment or outsourcing of the TAB business to overseas interests will have its own consequences.

The NZTAB had something corporate bookmakers would kill for. A captive audience and a market in which to operate free of competition. But they stuffed it up. They were home and hosed at the top of the straight, then the shit hit the all-weather surface…

Where to next I’m not sure. Maybe $1 each-way on horse number five, name: Lessonslearntthehardway.

Ben McMillan