Billion dollar punter unmasked

Photo / Northern Advocate

The world's biggest punter has been unmasked - and he's an Australian known to bet on Kiwi races.

Sydney's Daily Telegraph yesterday revealed that Zeljko Ranogajec is the man behind bets totalling more than $1.2 billion placed last year on horse races around the world.

According to the New Zealand Racing Board's annual reports, the total betting turnover in New Zealand in 2008 was only $1.5 billion.

Ranogajec is reported to have secured a 4 per cent big-volume discount with the Australian Tabcorp, and his business accounts for almost 10 per cent of its annual turnover.

A source familiar with the TAB's operation in New Zealand believed he probably bet on Kiwi races through overseas agencies.

The scale of Ranogajec's punts dwarf the efforts of New Zealand's top punters.

Graham Bruton, known as "Steel Balls" was mythologised by the TAB in the first half of the last decade for his five-figure bets, but Ranogajec's business can often see more than $1m bet on a single race.

Ranogajec, born to Croatian immigrants, reportedly employs dozens of people just to analyse race form.

He is known in industry circles as the "Loch Ness Monster", because public sightings of him are rare to nonexistent.