Bet on the banks
WHAT the Tote needs, we shall say, is dis- tribution. It still relies on selling tickets on the course and through its 216 shops. In just the same way the banks used to rely on their branches to defend their position in the high street. They, and the insurers, too, have discovered that the high street can be bypassed. Good systems linked up to an ordinary telephone wire can do wonders. Armed with nothing more, a bank made itself the market leader in motor insurance, and the Prudential is setting out to be a bank. The Tote, too, could move beyond the high street, if it only had the systems to support real-time betting with a link to the customers' cash. The banks have the sys- tems, hold the cash balances and are in the credit business too. Our plan would put the Tote and the banks into partnership. We would invite them to tender. Together they could offer direct-debit betting, press- button betting, plastic betting, bets on over- draft — not just to a few smoky shops but to millions of homes where the punters have settled down to watch the racing. The Old Nanny Goat would be a kid again and pay a jackpot, and racing would be the win- ner — together, of course, with the Captain and me.
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