Tom Waterhouse calls for Australian racing to ditch turnover tax

Former William Hill Australia CEO Tom Waterhouse has urged Australian authorities to ditch the turnover tax in favour of a gross profits tax to save horseracing from a “looming crisis”.

The bookmaker-turned-tipster took to Twitter to publish a three-step turnaround plan for the sport, which also included a significant increase in marketing and the introduction of one controlling race body.

I fear Racing is facing a looming crisis. pic.twitter.com/dNcMhTX69V

— Tom Waterhouse (@tomwaterhouse) November 12, 2019

“[Replacing turnover tax with gross profits tax] is not only fairer but is a must,” Waterhouse wrote.

“It will ensure that the average punter gets more bang for their buck as take-outs can be low.

“Turnover tax makes low-margin punters not viable to the bookmaker because they are simply paying more tax than they are getting in profit from the punters.

“This means the only players that can play freely without restrictions with the bookies are the ones that lose at a high margin.

“I know this better than most as I have seen corporate bookmakers ban and restrict thousands of low-margin clients as they can’t make money from them with a turnover tax,” he added.

Waterhouse also told Aussie racing to take lessons from the National Basketball League (NBA) in America by promoting the biggest stars in the sport.

Tom Waterhouse

“The NBA does a great job of promoting superstars and we need to do the same non-stop, all year round,” added Waterhouse.

Waterhouse relaunched his TomWaterhouse.com tipping site after leaving CrownBet in 2018.

Racing Victoria generated more than $461m in taxes from its racing, wagering and business activities in 2018.