Derby Day: Even the Tote Got Generous

 

By Sharan Kumar

 

The Bangalore Derby galloped off in style on Sunday, but the tote system decided to join the festivities in its own inimitable way—by tossing math out the window and generosity to the wind.

 

Once upon a time, Derby Day meant big hats, bigger bets, and a tote turnover that comfortably sailed past ₹15 crores. This year, it limped to a modest ₹3 crores across all pools—a reminder that while the horses were running, the public preferred chasing bookmakers’ better dividends over the anaemic tote.

 

But fear not—the system still had a surprise party trick up its sleeve. In a rare act of benevolence (or sheer confusion), it reportedly handed out double the declared dividend in the last race. Loyal punters who stuck with the tote despite its meagre returns suddenly found themselves recipients of unexpected largesse—all thanks to a helpful system glitch.

 

Alas, the joy was short-lived. One of those pesky honest punters—the kind who ruins a perfectly good windfall—actually reported the error. Chaos promptly broke out. Payments froze. Staff went into panic mode. Operators stayed well past closing, trying to reconcile cash balances that now made less sense than a three-legged accumulator.

 

Whether ₹25 lakhs turned into ₹50 lakhs, or whether any of that bonus bounty was clawed back, remains unclear. What we do know is the club’s accounting books likely developed a nervous twitch that night.

 

And this wasn’t even a one-off. Whispers suggest this isn’t the first time the tote has gone rogue. As usual, there’s no clarity about who will ultimately foot the bill. Maybe the outsourced operator will cough up. Maybe not. Meanwhile, one has to ask: who’s actually minding the tote?

 

Once upon a time, BTC ran its in-house tote system like a well-oiled machine, comfortably handling turnovers upwards of ₹2000 crores a year without so much as a hiccup. Now, with the system outsourced to a firm where—purely coincidentally, of course—a club member holds a prominent stake, it’s leaking more than a sieve in a monsoon.

 

After all, in this game, the only thing more certain than a photo finish is that the system will fail, and no one will take the blame. Racing might just be the only sport where the tote stumbles, the money vanishes—and the same people keep getting invited back to fix it.

 

In a truly sporting spirit, the turf authorities have helpfully rehired Uday Eswaran—the very man who oversaw the spectacular non-launch of the much-vaunted national tote. Remember that grand project? Announced in every forum imaginable, launch dates proclaimed like royal edicts, then quietly buried without a trace.

 

Naturally, he’s now back as Chairman to finally get it right. Because in racing administration, failure isn’t a disqualification—it’s practically a reference letter.

 

By appointing someone who failed so spectacularly the first time, the turf authorities seem to be preparing the ground for yet another fiasco. After all, the people he’s likely to hire will be the same team that couldn’t crack the code for successful implementation the last time around. It’s not so much learning from mistakes as putting them on retainer.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The enduring charm of the Bangalore Derby

I never thought that I would become a full-time racing writer when I set out as a journalist in the year 1980. My passion for cricket was what drove me to become a sports journalist. If there are many converts like me in the field of horse racing, you can blame it on the enduring charm of the Derby. Most people come to the Derby because they hear so much about it. Many of them stay back and I was one of them.   The first time I attended any race day was the running of the 1984 Derby. Eddy Cracknell trained Lively Empery was one of the highest priced runners in the fray. The horse reportedly was for sale much before the Derby. Luckily for the trainer it remained unsold and the horse went on to win the Summer Derby as well as the Winter Derby in the hands of Alan Mercer. It won the Derby at odds of 100 to 1.   Legend has it that the current leading trainer Padmanabhan told one of his owners to buy the horse and that he would win the Derby with this horse. The owner was n...
Read more

Rajan Bala, one of a rare kind

Image
One of the finest cricketer writers that India has seen, Rajan Bala, passed away in Bangalore on Friday (October 9) after brief illness. He was truly an inspirational journalist for a generation of sports writers in the country in a career spanning about four decades. I began my career as a sports journalist in Deccan Herald of which he was the Sports Editor. I worked under him later in Indian Express as well though at that time he was stationed in Chennai. He then moved to Mumbai and also had a stint with an eveninger. He returned to Bangalore in the last decade with the intention of retiring from active journalism and keep himself occupied by writing columns for newspapers. But he soon landed another job, this time as the Resident Editor of Bangalore edition of Asian Age and he made me write a column on horse racing. He later became a columnist for Bangalore Mirror and joined a TV company as a consultant editor and yet again, he made me participate in a panel discussion on horse rac...
Read more
Are the British government betting restrictions on the money?   By Rolf Johnson   I’m jumping the gun. The Government’s Gambling Review  might  publish its findings on 17 April but as deadlines for its publication have come and gone over three yawning years, I don’t think there’s need to hold one’s breath long enough to asphyxiate oneself. The delay has nothing to do, we are assured, with the £378,000 that fifty-seven Members of Parliament have received since the last election in hospitality, gifts, donations and wages from bookmakers. The integrity of that largesse has been “checked” though whether as rigorously as it is intended the public’s betting habits are going to be, we’ll have to be patient – until April 17 at least. Theatre audiences continue to attend playwright Samuel Beckett’s 1981 masterpiece ‘Waiting for Godot’ whose message is that repeated nonsensical actions demonstrate man’s inability to give meaning to life. Heavy stuff: but the Gambling Commissio...
Read more