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RITA - writers of fairytales


mardigras

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Who in their right mind would believe a single word that comes out of RITA.

I feel for the major stakeholders in this industry. My opinion is, RITA have been sharing nothing but lies and propaganda to the public. They're running scared.

They will no doubt not even put out an annual report by getting around doing so by mutual agreement with the minister. There is no doubt in my mind that the real situation at RITA is woeful. And they will hide this as long as they possibly can - which is a real injustice to those people basing their futures on it. 

Come on McKenzie - prove me wrong and put out the equivalent of a 6 month financial report (similar to what was previously provided by NZRB). From what you've publicly released, it looks like you lot have been sitting on your hands doing sfa. And now covid has come along and you think you can use that to cover up all your mismanagement. Talk about clueless.

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Just now, barryb said:

Absolutely, we are 2 weeks out from the new year and we have nothing.

Cant justify having a horse in work, we have zero idea what we are running for in just over 2 weeks.

Is the hold up NZTR or RITA?.

Communication is the equivalent of a two man small town business. Nothing.  wouldn't trust them with a single cent - and NZTR can be thrown in that arena also.

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I thought things were bad enough with the new FOB platform, but apart form the upfront costs and the ongoing charges, there appears to also be a component of profit share fee that RITA has to pay.

These guys are good. What negotiators. Let's pay a fee for some software. Let's pay an annual fee to keep running the software. Let's pay a share of profit fee the new software helps generate.

So with the ever increasing focus on fixed odds, the need to obtain a decent margin becomes ever more pressing. The higher the resulting net margin, the higher the resulting profit share fee. Good work, well done. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

Couple that with the shift from NZ racing to offshore racing - which incurs the additional fees (effectively race fields fees to offshore jurisdictions), we have a platform that has to pay more and more for fees associated with betting every where except here. And then pay a share of profit from the fixed odds profit (also from more and more from off-shore betting).

Send in the clowns. Don't bother, they're here.

Then when we add in the increased level of sports betting, that comes at a cost for fees to sporting organisations. The NZ industry becoming increasing dependent on 3 things outside of pokies - fixed odds, off-shore racing and sports betting.

These three things are the primary costs that relate to 'turnover related expenses'

So

in the six months to 31 Jan 2018, the net revenue was $188.085m. The turnover related expenses was $36.259m

in the six months to 31 Jan 2020, the net revenue was $187.144m. The turnover related expenses was $39.355m

(nothing to do with operating expenses)

Which has meant that even when they have made a lower net betting profit, the expenses related to those items above has increased by nearly 10%. 

These people are so stupid, they seem to think they can just increase net betting revenue. Yet they haven't managed to do that. The last 3 equivalent periods - $188m, $184m, $187m.

If the shift to sports/fixed odds/off-shore keeps increasing, the same $190m odd will have to pay the increased fees associated with that revenue. Ultimately, delivering reduced betting revenues net of turnover expenses. To increase it, would require a decent uplift in losses from NZ punters. Yep, it's looking rosy. Idiots is being kind. 

 

Edited by mardigras
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Peter's must be complicit in holding everything back till after the election

If he gets back in, then he can fudge it for another 3 years, no one in Govt will really care

If he doesn't  get back, then it won't  be his problem, and he can say all he has done, Messara etc etc, and blame the industry for not pulling together 

One thing for sure, if the true picture gets revealed pre election,  then he loses a big chunk of his racing support base

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1 hour ago, Maximus said:

i thought they had released the half-yearly report to 31 Jan 2020, about a week or so ago

Yep we got that, but Mardi is talking about more recent data, that shows the impact of Covid, the effect of the cost cutting, but probably more importantly, projections for 20/21, so people in the industry can plan their own businesses.

Personally, I'd be wanting to look at

1.  How achievable are the revenue projections, factoring in as well the impact of Covid and less available spending by people

2.  Just how much has been trimmed from the costs compared with previous years

3.  Therefore, how much funding the industry can expect to get

This is what Mardi is talking about, when he talks about the obligations RITA has, towards the people in the industry.

Remember the dog wags the tail, not vice versa

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Yes, and the released reports were just summary numbers - and to that point, were very bad numbers. But no underlying detail. And there is no detail around where the business is heading now. 

Their reluctance to communicate is a big worry. They're hiding things in my opinion.

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8 hours ago, Maximus said:

i thought they had released the half-yearly report to 31 Jan 2020, about a week or so ago

Maximus, the issue is they are not transparent. I believe they are actually lying, but that is my opinion.

Take this statement from that half year summary.
 
"which reflects RITA's continued disciplined cost management."

This statement in relation to the half year expenses.

total expenses for 6 months to 31 Jan 2019 - $107.3m
total expenses for 6 months to 31 Jan 2020 - $111.6m

They call that disciplined cost management. I call it a fairytale.

So they have increased total expenses by 4%. I'd hate to see what would happen with some undisciplined cost management if this is 'disciplined'. 

All the talk about making changes to make the business sustainable - it's just rubbish. 

And that was nearly 6 months ago. 

And they also wrote this.

"Like a lot of businesses, the timing of COVID-19 impacted a number of our business as usual activities, including finalising the voluntary reporting of our half year accounts."

7 weeks after the end of the 6 month period before lockdown even occurred, and this event has an impact to finalising a simple 6 month report (which would be able to be automatically generated). What were their finance people doing, all on leave? Unable to work from home? Or needing more time to massage some numbers because of how bad they are?

The industry relies on these people to allow them to plan how they will run their own futures. But what do you get? Nothing. They're incompetent.

They already know what has happened since January. But do the industry participants know what to expect in the next 6 months, but a lot more important than that, where the improvements in the sustainability of the industry are going to come from beyond that?

All they get is the same bullshit. A lot of words about how they have a strategy to do x. And then when it doesn't work, they tell you about strategy y.

And in the current climate, all you get is that the reason things aren't on budget is Covid. It's not. It's because they are running an old boys network with a bunch of people that don't know what they are doing. The first 6 months of this year under RITA were worse than last year, and a lot worse than the year before. These were the people who were supposedly going to right the ship. 

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I think the problem is, NZRB/RITA/Wagering NZ, think they are doing NZ Racing a service, by running the operation that funds them.

Something they are required to do by law, as per the Racing Act 2003, now surpassed by the Racing Industry Act 2019 on Aug 1

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On 7/12/2020 at 11:38 AM, Hesi said:

Peter's must be complicit in holding everything back till after the election

If he gets back in, then he can fudge it for another 3 years, no one in Govt will really care

If he doesn't  get back, then it won't  be his problem, and he can say all he has done, Messara etc etc, and blame the industry for not pulling together 

One thing for sure, if the true picture gets revealed pre election,  then he loses a big chunk of his racing support base

not sure about that, Hesi... Peters can claim that he has implemented transformational legislation enacted as recently as June 2020 to not only save but revitalise the industry - and the next 3 years under RacingNZ will decide racing's future! (Ergo, vote NZ First cos the Nats and Labbs dont give a toss.)

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1 hour ago, Maximus said:

not sure about that, Hesi... Peters can claim that he has implemented transformational legislation enacted as recently as June 2020 to not only save but revitalise the industry - and the next 3 years under RacingNZ will decide racing's future! (Ergo, vote NZ First cos the Nats and Labbs dont give a toss.)

That's what I was saying.  But the trouble is, it won't, and we have seen no proof that it will

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