Record $152m Distributed To Racing & Sporting Industry
10 November, 2016
Industry
Racing and Wagering Western Australia (RWWA) has today announced its financial results for the year ending 31 July 2016, highlighting a record funding allocation of $152M to the Western Australian racing and sports industries.
In 2015/16, all of RWWA’s profit from operations was distributed to racing and sports stakeholders. A further $9.1M was provided to race clubs for racing infrastructure grants, funded in part by RWWA’s reserves.
The state’s economic trends together with increased competition for the wagering dollar resulted in a decline in wagering revenue from the TAB of 1.6%. However, when taking into account revenue from all sources, the result was a decline of 1.2% for the year.
The TAB’s wagering activity, measured by the number of bets processed over the prior year, increased by 2.7%, however bet value decreased by 4.7% contributing significantly to the overall wagering result.
RWWA’s operating expenses, excluding direct funding to industry, increased by $8.9M or 3.5% for the year as a result of significant investment in wagering initiatives both on and off-course, together with higher investment in racing and integrity services to industry.
A key part of RWWA’s strategic plan is the ongoing investment in its digital and retail wagering channels to maintain the long term competitiveness of the TAB and in turn, recurring funding to industry.
Investment in the retail channel was directed towards rolling out high definition race wall technology to an additional 79 retail outlets together with point of sale information and self-service betting capacity. Up to 50% of the TAB’s retail transactions are now processed by self-serve technology.
Further investment was applied to the TABtouch digital platform with multiple new customer enhancements developed during the year.
“These areas of investment complement RWWA’s longer term strategic agenda of ensuring the TAB remains competitive and as Western Australia’s economic conditions improve, the organisation is well placed to generate growth from wagering revenue,” said RWWA CEO Richard Burt.
2015/16 was a positive year for racing with record prizemoney levels provided to the three codes in Western Australia.
For the first time all Group 1 thoroughbred feature races in Western Australia, hosted by Perth Racing, carried stakes of $1M and formed part of the 2015 Ascot Summer Racing Carnival.
The Inter Dominion returned to its origin for three years, commencing in November 2015. The partnership saw the return of Australasia’s richest pacing event, with the Inter Dominion Grand Final being worth $1.3M, and the overall series worth $1.8M in prizemoney.
RWWA invested significantly in the new Cannington facility, which opened on 23 March 2016, reaffirming the commitment to metropolitan racing for the greyhound code in the state.
The full 2016 RWWA Annual Report can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/RWWAAP16.