The return of crowds to New Zealand horse racing has left the industry with a shock problem: how do many of them get a bet on?
Like every other sport in the country horse and dog racing can return to normal from tomorrow, with the first real crowd expected the Cambridge harness meeting on Thursday night.
But club boss David Branch is in the dark as to how many of them will be able to place a bet.
The TAB, presently known as the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA), has decided to phase out the human betting operators for almost all race meetings apart from elite carnival days as a cost cutting measure.
They will eventually all be replaced by the self service electronic betting machines, which work much like cashflow machines at a bank, while many punters will choose to bet via the TAB app on their phones.