33 rd ASIAN RACING CONFERENCE THE GREAT DEBATE

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1 Tuesday, April13th 2010 For immediate release MEDIA RELEASE 33 rd ASIAN RACING CONFERENCE THE GREAT DEBATE The Great Debate, chaired by Andrew Harding, CEO Australian Racing Board, at the 33 rd Asian Racing Conference in Sydney on Tuesday, was a lively exchange of views between racing administrators Peter V landys, CEO Racing NSW; Nic Coward, CEO British Horseracing Authority; Peter Savill, former Chairman British Horseracing Board and corporate bookmakers Con Kafataris, Managing Director Centrebet; Alan Eskander, Managing Director Betstar and Edward Wray, Chairman Betfair. Each speaker had five minutes to present their case followed by Harding moderating a question and answer session that included questions from the floor of the conference. Coward said that with the UK general election underway he predicted that within 12 months the laws will have changed in the UK to ban off-shore wagering, and that within five years there would be major shifts in all government thinking. We will have a model that we can base our businesses on, said Coward. We want a proper functioning commercial partnership for the industry with people who want to have a partnership with us. Racing will continue to have great content and government will get this and they will create environments that industry can flourish in.

2 People want quality journalism which has to be paid for and major media content must be based on interactivity with customers, he said. Coward said that information flows must be tailored for racegoers to overcome the barrier to understand what betting is about and in a non-challenge way. V landys said that the NSW racing industry, currently in a court challenge with Betfair and corporate bookmakers over the validity of NSW racefields legislation, wanted to set its price for its product like any other commercial business. We do not want to be partners in the wagering business of exchanges and corporate, we just want to set the price for our industry, he said. V landys said that the discussion between the parties was about price. He said that other sports were carefully watching the present NSW court challenge and he suggested that the recent French law where all sports were taxed at 2% of turnover would set a precedent, which French delegates later agreed with suggesting that their new legislation might become European law. V landys questioned why the NSW racing industry is being taken to court to set its price for the use of racefields by wagering operators, and he used the comparison with the giant mineral resource company BHP Billiton who was able to set its iron ore prices for customers to either buy or buy elsewhere.

3 If you do not want to use our product then move elsewhere, he said. The industry is going to continue to lose revenue as customers have too much choice and we must identify other areas to obtain revenue streams, said Kafataris. Kafataris said that he considered that there should be different prices under racefields legislation for different wagering channels. He emphasised that corporate bookmakers want to contribute to the industry to use the product, but at a fair level of levy. Savill emphasised the need for all governments to legislate to enforce intellectual capital and that the UK model of funding has led the stakes for grade one racecourses to be $25,000 while Victoria has stakes of $70,000, with three times the turnover, while in 1961 they both had the same stakes of $2,000. The Levy contribution has dropped 110 million in 2004 to 91 million in 2009 after the collapse of the European court case of the UK industry owning its intellectual property he said. Eskander said that all in the wagering area were pushing for the same outcome. We all want a vibrant racing industry, said Eskander. Eskander said that racing was too expensive to bet on and that the punter of the future would come to understand that and compare costs of wagering returns with competing sports.

4 Wray, who co-founded the technology company Betfair, picked up a consistent theme of the conference, commenting on the instant transfer of information. Punters live in a world of real time information, he said. The experience of watching live racing is much better than watching on TV but technology is moving at such a pace with the use of I Phones that people will use them. We do more business in the five hours of a 20/20 cricket match than we do in a five day test match, he added. Wray said that Betfair had taken a share in a social networking site in the USA and he commented that the exchange s experience was that the first bet by new customers was on sport, not racing. He said that during recent negotiations over where Betfair would continue to base itself in Australia they had not wanted to move off-shore, and that they were pleased to continue to be based in Tasmania.

5 NSW is waiting on the outcome of the present court challenge to determine its way forward over it pricing for racefields and the judge is expected to hand down his decision within weeks. ENDS For further information Rob Burnet Media Tel: