Punters can't bet on Pune races

A royalty issue that appears to have no solution at the moment has forced the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC) to stop beaming signals of the races to be held at its centre to Bangalore Turf Club (BTC). The decision –– communicated through a letter to BTC on Friday –– means that punters will not be able to bet on Pune races from Saturday.

The issue has been simmering for the last four-five weeks after the RWITC demanded an audit of BTC’s accounts with regards to the betting collections, claiming they are bound to receive more royalty than the current amount of Rs 2.50 crore given by the Bengaluru club.

Responding to the situation, BTC chairman Satish Chandra said that the RWITC’s stance was against the interest of the punters. “The punters, who are the backbone of racing, will be hit with this decision from RWITC. The club should have kept the punters in mind before coming to this conclusion,” said Chandra.

Chandra also dismissed RWITC’s demand for an audit of its accounts. “The RWITC wants to audit our accounts and that is not acceptable. We have our own internal audit process in place and we have complete trust in it,” he said. Chandra felt that the extensive difference in growth and development between both the clubs may have compelled RWITC to claim more royaty that isn’t correct.

“The BTC has worked extensively in popularising the totalisator. We have close to 1000 employees working on a race day. From the last 15 years, we have worked hard on improving the standards of the club and the turnovers are the result of our quality of functioning. It’s unfair to focus just on the turnovers and to ignore the challenges of maintaining the standard of the club. The RWITC’s turnovers have remained stagnant since the last 15 years and their effort to improve the betting system have been poor,” noted Chandra.

Chandra added that the situation though will not effect the club as it will go ahead with inter-venue betting for Hyderabad and Kolkata races. “BTC won’t be effected much as we will take betting from other centres. Thanks to dual race days, we will have inter-venue betting for races in Hyderabad and Kolkata, instead of Pune.”

Chandra said that there seems to be no immediate solution to the issue but hoped that RWITC’s AGM on September 12 will result in some better dialogue between the two clubs. “They are having their AGM on September 12 with a possibility of new chairman being elected. Let’s see if there can be any further progress made on this issue with the new head.”