RACING AND WAGERING WESTERN AUSTRALIA - RWWA Home

REPORT ON OPERATIONS
Greyhound Racing
2012 Major Activities in Relation to Greyhound Racing
• RWWA provided the Western Australian Greyhound
Racing Association (WAGRA) with base and feature stake
funding of $8.8M.
• The WESTCHA$E Incentive Scheme paid out $490.6K
for the year, up 7.8% on 2010/11, with 258 individual
greyhounds earning bonuses for their connections.
• WAGRA conducted 3,558 races at 296 meetings,
which provided 27,717 racing opportunities for 1,865
individual greyhounds.
• TAB wagering on Western Australian greyhound racing
reached an all time high of $85.3M, up 19.7% on the
previous year, on 2.8% more race meetings.
• On-course wagering at the three WAGRA venues
increased marginally to $8.8M, up 1.8% on 2010/11.
• The number of local greyhound races with national
vision increased from 3,404 in 2010/11 to 3,454. This
equated to 97.1% of all WA greyhound races conducted,
with those races not receiving SKY vision being races 13
or 14 at various meetings that did not receive coverage
as wagering beyond 12 races cannot be provided by
Tabcorp’s wagering system.
• Consistent with RWWA’s animal welfare policies, RWWA
supports the ‘homing’ of retired greyhounds, under the
programme known in Western Australia as Greyhounds
As Pets (GAP). RWWA provided $110K towards the cost
of running the GAP programme in 2011/12, during
which time a total of 110 greyhounds were adopted into
new homes.
• The RWWA Information Services Division continued
development of OzChase, the joint venture greyhound
racing system being designed, built, hosted and
maintained in Western Australia for use by the two
joint venture partners, RWWA and Greyhound Racing
New South Wales (GRNSW). During 2011 Greyhound
Racing South Australia Ltd, the Northern Territory Racing
Commission and Racing Services Tasmania signed
contracts to move onto the OzChase platform. Those
three jurisdictions ‘went live’ on the system on Monday 6
August, just after the official year end.
• The first Northam night greyhound meeting was
conducted under lights at Burwood Park on Monday 2
April 2012, following the completion of the Greyhound
Track Lighting Project at the venue.
• At the close of the period in review, RWWA and the
Western Australian Greyhound Racing Association
(WAGRA) were no closer to reaching any finality on
funding of the ‘new’ Cannington metropolitan venue.
A Business Case study has been prepared for the State
Government which is under review by the WA Treasury.
In the meantime arrangements are in hand with the
landlord, Canning Agricultural, Recreational and
Horticultural Society to extend the racing operations
until early 2014. Further submissions to the State
Government for funding in addition to that committed
to the project by RWWA and WAGRA, will continue next
year, whilst a contingency plan on racing opportunities
once Cannington is no longer available will be finalised
in 2012/13.
New track lights at Northam
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