Online Bookmakers / Andy Morris / 14 March 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

The TAB or the 'jolly green giant' as some people refer to it, can polarize open. Without doubt the TAB is the lifeblood of the Australian Thoroughbred, Harness and Greyhound industries, it has about as many positives as it does negatives.

The TAB naturally offers betting on every single thoroughbred, harness and greyhound event. With all bets placed with the totalisator, by the fixed odds service offered on feature race markets. The one of the big advantages the TAB has over their corporate bookmaking rivals is the exotic options available on racing. Quinellas, Exacta, Trifecta, First 4, Quadrella, Daily Double, Extra Double and Big 6 are the feature Tab exotics options, giving punters to chance to win more for a small outlay. In effect some of the more difficult dividends to snare like the Big 6 allow punters to compete for the 'lotto style' dividend that can change a life.

The obvious drawback of the TAB is the inability to take a fixed price on racing or be able to bet Top Fluc or Best of 3 Totes, which is a significant disadvantage to the punter.

The TAB has often been maligned for a website that can become very slow or even shutdown during peak traffic periods, for a layout and navigation system on their website that is time consuming and difficult for a punter to find the market they are after and on the whole has been designed from a marketing perspective rather than from a punters viewpoint. That said the TAB has the system that no other bookmaker has to deal with in that they have retail outlets, and their website system and wagering platform needs to be able to complement the bet placement procedures that punters go through at any TAB outlet.

On the sports front the TAB is generally unchallenged in the number of sports markets offered, with leagues and games covered around the world. There is an incredible amount of exotic options on offer, and the TAB is generally the market leader in pricing the Head to Head and line markets for all NRL and AFL matches. The downside of the TAB's domination and ability to reach virtually every punter in the country through retail outlets is that they do need to be as competitive on their pricing, and as such they aren't. They operate on the biggest margins of any bookmaker and unequivocally offer the worst prices in the market, ensuring the punter is generally short changed.

The TAB go 41.0 about North Melbourne winning the AFL flag in 2009; their odds on Phil Mickelson winning the US Masters are 8.0; they do not have a market on the State of Origin yet.