Tote Vote

As we reported earlier the Tasmanian government was to vote on whether or not to sell the Tasmanian Tote, and if so how much the appropriate price would be. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation network recently released the groups most interested in bidding for the Tote would partially be the folks at the online batting exchange, Betfair. Betfair currently has a partnership with some major betting groups in Australia which would make for an interesting online casino industry related purchase. The state still claims that the sale of the website was not planned by any means. The Greens Party and the Tasmanian Opposition politicos have reacted rather unkindly to the news that the online casino company will be sold into the public domain.

The political organization is baffled that the Tote is even on the selling block. The State Teasurer, Michael Aird, did announce in the later parts of 2008 that there was no intention to sell the Tasmanian Tote. With that said, the price of the Tasmanian Tote is supposed to get up to the astounding amount of $100 million. The person who came up with this estimated selling price is Tom Ellison, who is a financial analyst who has experience with online casinos. He did speak to the associated press on his opinion of the online casino industry in Tasmania. He also commented on the government’s timing of the sale. He did make a good point by saying that it is probably a horrible time to sell a major business given the current state of the global economy. The financial advisor did say that selling the company to Betfair would make sense. He also added, “Tote already has an agency agreement with Betfair and certainly Betfair would be able to expand some of their Australian operations through Tote," he also said that another potential bidder for the Tasmanian Tote would be Tabcorp.