From https://www.facebook.com/cosmicway.net:
THE END OF THE GREEK HORSE RACING
The end of the Greek racecourse is closer today than ever before.
OPAP was forcibly completing one horse race per week with the remaining 250 horses, now blocking half of them with various excuses, such as that the electricity for the stables has not been paid.
So from the last three rallies one was canceled and in the other two the program was bitter - 5 races with 4-5 horses each participating.
Below does not go. Below we will simply write that "the Greek racetrack is closed and finally".
Absolutely nothing is heard from the government. Neither positive nor negative.
This makes us think the worst, but since there is absolutely no comment from government officials, we can not say anything (unless someone informs us).
The story of the gradual destruction of the racetrack goes very far in the past, very far, but we will catch it from 2011 when the privatization was decided.
We did not like it at all. We would have preferred a modernized ODIE to the position of the sluggish state agency we knew, but that was only a utopian view - given the conditions prevailing in this country.
So privatization did not move forward. The French PMU, which was supported by many, was pulling its legs. She saw the terms of the HRDH and pulled her legs, until she left completely and did not submit an offer.
INTRALOT was left to make an offer in the summer of 2014 and then OPAP entered the game with its own biggest, albeit overdue, offer. OPAP finally won and of course the overdue did not count, it was given to him.
So what did all the gentlemen of the racetrack do at that time who are breaking their clothes today for the upcoming padlock?
What they went and did was to ask for the ... acceleration of the completion of the delayed competition, as if that was the problem. The HRADF told them "well we will look to speed it up, go to work now".
In reality, however, the issue that even an unrelated person understood was that this competition should be not only for the price but also to ensure the development of the sport and the betting. But could we say that?
Not because it was taboo.
Not because Messrs. of the hippodrome had put the goldsmiths and their former goldsmith friends to threaten us with ... an ambush in the hospital, which had happened to make us sick then.
That's what they did.
Do these make sense?
They do not have but ask them who will know what their logic was to explain it to you.
Even if it is a bunch of vagrants - which it may be - their behavior does not make sense, but if you ask them they can explain it to you.
Eventually, the hippodrome was found in the hands of OPAP and from there on, we could only watch inactively what was happening and so did Messrs. of the racecourse.
There are some mysteries.
One is why OPAP moved overdue in August 2014?
The possible explanation for this is that he did not want to face the French PMU. He did not know that the PMU was not going to bid, the PMU had not informed him and due to some strong connections across the country did not want to oppose it.
The other is because the big offer of 40 million euros compared to the 11 offered by INTRALOT.
Until then, both the former state-owned OPAP and the private sector had not shown the slightest interest in horse racing.
Only the state OPAP once said, in the past, that the racetrack should pay less in bets so that its odds do not come above our football "let's bet".
So OPAP suspected we all wanted two things. Take INTRALOT out of the middle and then downgrade the racetrack.
Indeed, this is exactly what he did from 2016, which started until today (until the bet on foreign horse racing dissolved!).
It was also the issue of rent for the use of Markopoulos, 2 million a year.
No matter how we did the calculations, it did not come out, with the amount of the bet as it was formed in those years.
With one or two races a week and a total turnover of about 250,000 euros, it did not work out.
With the data of 2005, three races and 2.5 million turnover in each, would be a weight to which ODIE would respond with the greatest difficulty. With the data of 2014, it just did not come out - hence the departure of the PMU.
Why didn't INTRALOT leave so that no one was left (before OPAP appeared)? There are various rumors, such as that INTRALOT would never disburse the 11 million and would offset them with debts owed to it by ODIE for the totalizator.
Also that INTRALOT would work on the racetrack for two or three years and then close it.
Now OPAP, after doing as it did, is asking the government to give him the rent.
The government is stepping on its feet and so is OPAP.
Is there a contradiction in this?
Ethically there may be a contradiction for OPAP, but in practice it does not exist. Why exist? We ask you gentlemen - says OPAP - to give us the 2 million euros to pay less tax.
If they gave them to him, would they go for the benefit of horse racing or not? OPAP knows - we can say that "they went there, and there" but we know nothing. What do we know?
The fact is that both situations are to blame for today's mess.
Namely, the excessive taxation (in which we should also count the taxation on the players' profits) and the policy of downgrading OPAP.
What could the government do?
As things stand today, to give OPAP its 40 million and build a new ODIE.
Not much, but it does not seem at all on the horizon.
But let us generalize the discussion a little.
If everyone had the best of intentions, could the Greek racecourse be built?
We will tell you our appreciation.
Today, the racetrack has about half as many friends as it had before the financial crisis, that is, before 2009.
But it does not have half the turnover, it has 1/10 of the turnover as is well known. 1/30 practically because the races are less but let's say 1/10 since every race of 2022 makes 1/10 of the turnover that it would do in 2009.
So in 2009 and before, how many were the Filipinos? It was 20,000 based on measurements made of the number of customers at the agencies, customers playing on the phone and attending the racecourse. So few but had money to play.
There is poverty but also reduced odds are anything but motivating to play.
The Greek racetrack can therefore not return to the days of glory.
Because there are also competitive games that as far as we go in the past did not exist and there is no money.
When OPAP manages to complete a somewhat decent program we see the turnover reach 300,000 euros. Above is not possible.
One case would be to build an online betting platform (s.s. the Greek racecourse OPAP may be the only gambling in the world without an online betting platform!). We estimate that this would go to 600,000 euros per concentration but until then. This is the money that exists today and horse racing is not and never has become a national sport.
We will tell you a secret.
We asked Anna Karamanli why there was never a horse racing report on ERT Sports Sunday when she was a presenter.
This happened in 2015 and Ms. Karamanli told us "others were arranging these, not me, but I also did not know that there is a racecourse in Greece - now I only hear something that OPAP is going to race!".
Was the answer logical or evasive?
Maybe yes, maybe no - however it seems effortless that ERT did not even want to hear about horse racing, and Ms. Karamanli personally may not have known.
What is the conclusion?
Our conclusion is that the racecourse does not have much room for development. Something much better than today can do but it is blocked in every way - until it arrived just a few days before the closing.
As much as anything can be done, we doubt it - because of the entanglement that has been created but also because of the people who make it up.
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