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Totalizator Amendment Bill 2008 Thursday 3rd April 2008 The Rev Fred Nile, Leader of the Christian Democratic Party, has supported the Totalizator Amendment Bill 2008 in State Parliament: “The Totalizator Amendment Bill 2008 is a machinery, administrative type bill that will amend the Totalizator Act 1997 to remove the 16 per cent cap on commission that a licensee may deduct each financial year from the total amount invested in all totalisators conducted by the licensee in that year and to provide for the rules made under the Act to prescribe the caps on the commission that a licensee may deduct from the total amount invested in each totalizator conducted by the licensee”, said Rev Fred Nile. “As far as we can ascertain, the legislation has no direct impact on either increasing or decreasing gambling in New South Wales, although the Government has acknowledged that these reforms have been generated to allow new revenue growth to be achieved as punters' betting preferences continue to shift towards the exotic higher take-out betting options such as the first four and the quadrella. These are new products that apparently are growing in popularity, supported by Tabcorp's integrated flexi-betting option, which allows punters to take percentage bets involving multiple combinations of contestants in any race. The question is
whether the Government's new options will create greater
opportunities for regular gamblers or attract new gamblers and
therefore increase existing social problems. It is not clear at
this stage what impact these changes will have, and they will
need to be carefully monitored, but there is widespread
community concern over the Government's increasing dependence on
revenue from gambling to meet its State budget. These new
arrangements, put forward by the racing industry and supported
by Tabcorp, will protect TAB punters from any type of price
gouging by prescribing commission caps. We support the
legislation but express reservation about whether these changes
may indirectly increase gambling”, Rev Nile stated. |