U.K. government is soon to decide which of two remaining bidders get to buy the Tote

The U.K. government is soon to decide which of two remaining bidders get to buy the Tote, the state-owned bookmaker which has been variously on and off the block for the best part of 20 years.

The last two horses in the running are Betfred, the country’s fourth biggest retail bookmaker and Sports Investment Partners, the vehicle run by racing aficionado and former chairman of the British Horseracing Authority, Martin Broughton.

Both offer similar financial benefits to the industry–around £120 million of the £200 million the Tote is said to be worth. But politics will undoubtedly play a large part in the final decision process.

SIP may well have the advantage with its promise to reserve at least 10% of a newly floated company for the industry and a further 25% for “racing-friendly” investors, such as owners, breeders and trainers.

The industry is concerned that Betfred, an unknown quantity, would have a virtual monopoly on pool betting on horse racing. Just last week a group of leading industry figures wrote to ministers handling the sale saying “we do not believe it should be politically acceptable to nationalize and sell an iconic British institution to a private bookmaker, a significant part of whose business is based offshore and which therefore has no obligation to pay U.K. taxes or the [pool betting] levy.”

The letter, signed by representatives of the British Horseracing Authority, the Racecourse Association and the Horsemen’s Group, went on to say that Mr. Broughton’s bid “satisfies all of the government’s criteria and also provides a more favorable solution for racing.”

For its part, Betfred is making much of the fact it is already a bigger company and that its eponymous co-founder and executive chairman Fred Done has had “a lifelong ambition” to own the Tote.

A more persuasive factor may be that although it has retail experience, running an 840-strong chain of bookmakers across the U.K., Betfred has no pool betting expertise and will therefore need to keep on most of the 400-500 full-time staff at the Tote’s Wigan HQ.

Whatever happens it would be a shame if a deal which has been such a long timing coming falls at the final hurdle.

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