Anil Mukhi,
You are a senior racing journalist. And I do not even pretend / try to refute your views.
What I state is the ground realities AS PER MY UNDERSTANDING.
Japan, Singapore, Australia,, USA, Hong Kong & other countries allow on line betting. And there are customers (bettors) who use this facility. So, you are presuming that if online betting is allowed in India also,the turf clubs will get decent commission, GST will be up, there will be income tax receipts so on. Well. A rosy picture indeed.
Whether the betting tax & club commission in the countries you mentioned is at the same level as it is in India? In india, betting tax (gst) is 28% and club ommission is 5%. I think betting tax in India is the highest among horse racing countries. Correct me if I am wrong.
The next thing is the number of people who are betting in India is extremely low. The population in the 15+ districts where betting is possible may be 15 crores out of which less than 1,50,000 indulge in betting on horses. And, out of that more than 90% bet with bookies. At half tax. So barely 5k to 10k are betting at tote. But for those bets with bookies, clubs get negligible commission and Government gets very very small amount as GST. For eg bookies get 800 as half tax for 8000 bet, but they may remit not more than 50/- as gst. (for 8000 bet, the bookies require to remit 2240/- as gst & 400 as club commission).
In India, betting on horses is considered a sin. More dangerous than consuming alcohol. Strictly speaking, it requires not more than 1000/- per day for a man belonging to middle class to bet on horses. But, the ground reality is, a punter, belonging to middle class, may blow up even one lakh to three lakh rupees in one day. How much the rich people bet daily is anybody's guess.
And, precisely for this reason, the Government is not allowing online betting. One thing that is most common among politicians is they are not race bettors. I can say that 99% of our politicians (councillors, MLAs, MPs & others) do not know or understand what horse race betting is!
So they will fight tooth and nail any proposal to introduce online betting.
Now, let us say all politicians soften their rigid stand against race betting and Government allows online betting. But who will bet? Paying 32% towards tax puls club charges. Only those tote bettors who may number less than 10k. I do not think Government will dig a mountain to catch a dead rat.
As things stand, at present there is online betting facility in small measure. Bookies take betting through whatsapp. We have to wait for at least 10 more years to see official/legal online betting