GRNSW
Last Friday's TAB Million Dollar Chase semi-final night has shattered wagering records with the meeting generating the highest turnover ever for a NSW greyhound meeting.
The Wentworth Park event, which featured the eight winner-take-all MDC semi-finals, with a spot in Friday's Grand Final at stake, had a turnover of $6,688,923.
Friday's huge numbers clearly surpassed the previous NSW benchmarks set at the first two editions of the Million Dollar Chase where turnover reached $6.27 million.
Adding further merit to the figures is that unlike previous editions of the semi-finals and grand finals of the Million Dollar Chase, last week the race night clashed head on with finals in both the NRL and AFL.
The highest wagering race on the card was the semi-final won by fan favourite Flying Ricciardo for owner/trainer Kristy Sultana. The turnover for the single event was $813,651, while the semi-final won by the sport's latest cult figure, Tommy Shelby, generated turnover of $721,076, and the race won by young star Xerri, held $658,668.
The increase from the first two Million Dollar Chase semi-final nights was also staggering, up 31.8% on last year's turnover of $5,073,204, and 33.5% on the inaugural year of the event, where turnover on the Friday night's semis was a still impressive $5,010,106.
With similar uplift from semi-final night to grand final evening, which has been around 25% in the previous two years, the last Friday's new record will only last a week before being smashed again.
"This is a tremendous result and shows that when you have a premium product with the sports' elite racing, and you have the confidence of the punter to invest in the industry, that you are rewarded by fantastic results in turnover," Greyhound Racing NSW Chief Executive Officer Tony Mestrov said.
The highest ever turnover nationally was the 2018 Melbourne Cup which was just over $7million - which surpassed the previous record set by the 2018 Million Dollar Chase - a number which will also be under threat this Friday night at Wentworth Park.
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