The royalty issue between the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC) and Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) is not likely to be resolved and BTC will continue to conduct inter-venue betting on Hyderabad and the other centres.

BTC chairman, Satish Chandra after RWITC pulled the plug and cut of the signal from Pune last week made it clear that BTC will not offer more royalty and are not open to any negotiations. “ We made one big offer.  We from our end are willing to pay 2.5 crore net and that works out to 3.10 taking into account that we only get Rs 59 lakhs from RWITC.  It is an increase of 48 percent and that’s huge. We were earlier paying Rs 1.68 crore and now we have offered Rs 80 lakh more and that’s a substantial increase,” said Satish pointing out that this is the final offer and that BTC is not in a position to increase the figure.

BTC not impressed with the big brother attitude of the RWITC made it clear that the Mumbai club should stop playing big bully and resolve the issue.

“When we made an agreement in 2002 that 23 percent of gross tote and bookmaker revenue will be the royalty amount, the revenue from tote at Mumbai and Bangalore were on par. BTC after that has spent big money to improve the infrastructure and on the terminals required to profitably operate the tote counters.  We have 1,200 people working on each day and that costs Rs 15 lakh a day,” said Satish pointing out that Mumbai has made no attempt to improve their tote betting and RWITC is a bookmaker driven club.

Satish also disclosed that RWITC have sold their signal to TSMG, a German company for telecast of Mumbai racing worldwide for Rs one crore and that cutting the signal to BTC who have offered 2.5 crore defies logic.

Satish pointed out that the collections on tote at BTC for Hyderabad races have been on par with Mumbai races and that BTC is not losing out on the revenues generated from off-course betting.

Meanwhile RWITC in a press release pointed out that as per agreement BTC needs to pay a 23 percent royalty on the tote and bookmakers commission on betting for RWITC races at BTC and that RWITC has a similar agreement going with all the other centres.  The Mumbai club revealed that they found a marked reduction in the royalty received from BTC and approached the Register of Companies and obtained statements of accounts filed by BTC from which they derived that the royalty RWITC received was substantially lower. The RWITC then asked for an audit of accounts which BTC refused and this was one reason that led to cutting of the signal.  RWITC in the release have made it clear that unless BTC permits audit or arrives at a reasonable solution, the Mumbai club will not permit BTC from holding inter-venue betting of Pune races.