| Greg Wood: Does the Tote sale really matter? Following a decade of false dawns does the Tote sale really matter for racing when pool betting is so difficult to sellDoes the ownership of the Tote matter? If you are one of the 650 staff at its Wigan HQ, or work in one of its 540 betting shops or behind a window on racedays, then clearly the answer is yes, very much. But is it still of over-riding importance for racing? After 10 years of broken promises and false dawns, does anyone still care?There are plenty of people in the bookmaking industry who do, and yesterday's announcement that the government will, to put it crudely, flog off the Tote for the best bid it gets will flush them out. Never mind that the business was only taken into state ownership in the first place so that it could be passed on to a racing trust. The government needs the cash, and the plans and promises of the last administration are worthless.Whether the racing interests who launched two previous bids for the Tote will get involved this time remains to be seen. They always seemed most interested in the pool betting business, while bookmaking bidders would see that almost as an irrelevance, and focus instead on the shop estate, which will be worth rather more. You could pay for it all and then sell on the shops, but what amounts to a distress sale is not going to realise their true value.Of course, the reverse is also true, and if a bookmaking chain acquires the Tote, it is entirely possible that it could sell on the pool betting arm to racing interests for an awful lot less than the £320m that the government turned down for the entire business a couple of years ago.Given the structure of the Tote, and the fact that different parts of it appeal to different potential bidders, there is surely a deal to be done somewhere. But simply acquiring the pool business would do nothing to address the almost instinctive resistance of British punters when it comes to pool betting.This is one reason why the presence of Tote management in the most recent, failed racing bid was so important. Freed from the dead hand of state control, they could, in theory at least, start to market and grow pool betting like a normal business.But could pool betting ever make a significant contribution to the funding of racing? If so, the Scoop6, or something similar, remains the only hope. The takeout on straightforward win pools is never likely to drop to a point where the returns offer serious competition to the bookies' prices, never mind the 100.5% markets on Betfair.Millions of punters around the world bet into pools with penal takeouts all their lives without a second thought, because they have no alternative. They can only dream of the tiny margins that punters in this country enjoy. But the way they react to the situation is interesting. Many focus squarely on "exotics" – trifectas, Pick6s and so on – which offer the only realistic hope to beat the percentages.In simple terms, you can place six single bets with 15% skimmed from the pool each time, or a single bet on all six winners with a takeout of 25%. Exotics are the only territory on which pool betting stands a serious chance of competing with the alternatives.For racing, getting its hands on this side of the Tote's business could yet be the easy part. Getting enough punters switched on to pool betting to make all the effort and expense worthwhile would be a much more daunting challenge.Horse racingSport bettingGreg Woodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
New FAU stadium has flex club space Officials planning Florida Atlantic University’s new football stadium have developed a flexible club space that they think is a novel concept in college sports and provides an attractive option for the program’s lower-level donors. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Europe regain the Ryder Cup • McDowell holds nerve as Cup goes down to final pairing• Montgomerie's team hold off US fightback at Celtic Manor• Read Scott Murray's hole-by-hole reportCometh the hour, cometh the man and for Colin Montgomerie there was no better man than Graeme McDowell, who today won the point that brought the Ryder Cup back to Europe.After a day of thrilling golf and swinging fortunes, McDowell's victory on the 17th hole at Celtic Manor over Hunter Mahan in the last of the 12 singles matches was enough to give the home team a narrow 14½ to 13½-points victory over their American opponents.It was a second great personal triumph for McDowell, who won the US Open at Pebble Beach in the summer but this meant more and to many more people.All around the green there was bedlam as the European players engulfed their hero of the moment.McDowell was in tears afterwards, and he was not alone. "I have never felt so nervous in my life,'' he said afterwards."For the European captain Colin Montgomerie, there was the pride of being able to add a victory as captain to his distinguished record as a player in this event. He said: "Graeme McDowell was put there for a very good reason. He's full of confidence and that showed. That birdie on 16 was quite unbelievable."I'm very proud. It's a very proud moment for us all here in Europe. They all played to a man magnificently, they all gave 110% and that's all you can ask. I want to talk about every player playing how well they did. They did magnificently. I knew I had a great 12. I just had to rely on certain people at certain times."At one stage there were eight blue names on the board and it was over. But they weren't two, three up, they were one up. It's a dangerous position to be in. They [the US] came back extremely well. All credit to them. You played magnificently today. The three-point deficit was the reason why we won."Asked about his own achievement, Montgomerie said: "I didn't hit a shot so it wasn't much of an achievement, but it's a proud, proud moment."No doubt there was relief too, because at one stage the European team was ahead in eight of the 12 singles out on the golf course and cruising towards an easy victory. But the tide turned in mid-afternoon as, first, Tiger Woods and then Phil Mickelson won victories for the USA.The Europeans replied with victories – Ian Poulter, who was superb in defeating Matt Kuchar, and Miguel Angel Jiménez, who defeated the American rookie Bubba Watson.But gradually the margin between the two teams narrowed, with Rickie Fowler birdying the last four holes in his match against Edoardo Molinari to win a crucial half-piont. Suddenly, memories stirred of Brookline in 1999, when the USA overcame a four-point deficit heading into the singles to record a famous victory.It then came down to McDowell and Mahan, until finally it came down to McDowell. "We wanted to win it for Seve Ballesteros,'' the hero of the moment said afterwards.Ryder CupGolfLawrence Doneganguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Murray breezes into Shanghai semis • British No1 brushes aside Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-2, 6-3• Murray completed victory in under an hourA week that started under a cloud of light Chinese smog and suffocating Scottish doubt broke into what passes for sunshine as Andy Murray reached the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters, with the tantalising prospect of a final against Roger Federer, who is in rampant form.It was as perfect a performance as the Scot has managed since the early rounds of the US Open, a 6-2, 6-2 win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a touch under an hour.The win set him up for a match against the Argentinian Juan Mónaco who, in an enthralling three-setter of high quality, shocked the shocker, Jürgen Melzer, the tough Austrian who dumped Rafael Nadal out of the tournament yesterday. Monaco played some inspired tennis and will be no pushover.He beat Melzer 6-7, 7-5, 6-2 in what may have been the best contest of the week. "I've played him a couple of times," Murray said. "I used to practice with him a lot in Spain and quite a lot at tournaments, so we both know each other's games well."Tsonga, though, provided little resistance for Murray. Not long back from three months out with a torn left patella and playing as if his forehand belonged to an alien, the Frenchman was no more than a quality hitting partner – but Murray did all he had to do, with verve, precision and renewed self-confidence.He sent out a perfectly timed message that he has recovered his health, self-belief and form in the lead-up to the World Tour Finals in London next month. The world No4 looked every inch worthy of that ranking after several weeks' struggling with a flu-like virus, not to mention a game to match a mood as grey as the polluted Chinese skies."The year's been up and down," Murray added. "At the beginning I was playing well. I played well at Wimbledon and Toronto, and now I'm hitting the ball really clean again. I had to practice a lot before coming out to Asia but when I got here, I was struggling with the illness. Now I'm spending more time on the practice court than in the gym, and it's paying off."Having brushed aside the Chinese wild card Bai Yan in two quick sets in his first match then giving the some times dangerous Frenchman Jeremy Chardy a similarly swift lesson yesterday, Murray was full of running today and capitalised on nearly all of Tsonga's many errors."He's a really good frontrunner," Murray said, "but he wasn't serving as big as usual, so I got into a lot of the return games. I didn't give him any chances on my serve, and I was hitting the ball really clean from the back of the court."Tsonga briefly looked competitive, acing Murray at 211kph to hold his opening service game, but mostly he struggled, hitting his ground strokes to all parts but those designated as scoring areas.Murray broke him to love in the third game then rolled out his repertoire of crisp, flat winners down either wing, again mixing up his patient and methodical attack with his new pet drop-shot. It didn't click all the time, but his serve did. He put a couple of boomers out of Tsonga's reach on his way to taking the first set in 25 minutes, then finished the job in clinical style.Tsonga double-faulted to gift Murray the first game of the second set, at which point his game unravelled, the gloom leavened only by the occasional flash of French brilliance, but he never threatened to break back.Novak Djokovic, who won in Beijing last weekend and has dropped only 13 games in three matches here, took only 66 minutes to dismiss Spain's Guillermo GarcÃa-López (who beat Nadal in Bangkok) 6-2, 6-3. The Serb's semi-final against Federer, who hammered Robin Soderling 6-1, 6-1, could be a collision of the past master and a possible future one.Soderling, No5 in the world, will have to wait a bit longer now to qualify for next month's Greenwich grand finale.Andy MurrayTennisKevin Mitchellguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Giants, Rangers meet again, play for World Series By BEN WALKER 2010-10-24T04:22:23ZWhen the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants met the first time, it was a novelty. Now they're set to tangle for much, much more.... hosted.ap.org |