Million-dollar comeback - Sportsbet sponsorship boosts prize money for South Australian G1 features

South Australia’s four Group 1 races will have their prize money doubled to $1 million this year following a sponsorship deal with wagering firm Sportsbet.

*Black Caviar features on the winner’s list of The Goodwood (Photo: (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)*

The Goodwood and the Robert Sangster Stakes will return to the purse levels reached in 2017 and 2018 while the Australasian Oaks and South Australian Derby will offer $1 million for the first time.

It’s a move that promises to breathe new life into Adelaide’s racing carnival which opens with the Robert Sangster Stakes and Australasian Oaks meeting on April 27.

South Australia’s premier sprint race, The Goodwood, will close out three weeks of Group 1 racing on May 11.

It is hoped the increases, off the back of a seven-year partnership agreement between Sportsbet, Racing SA and the South Australian Jockey Club announced on Friday, will restore Adelaide as a viable destination for Australia’s Group 1 stars.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Racing SA and the SAJC in this way and the big prizemoney will really put South Australian racing back on the map,” Sportsbet chief executive Barni Evans said.

Racing SA chair Rob Rob Rorrison said the increases would raise the profile of racing in the state.

“Stakeholder feedback during the consultation phase of the recently released Strategic Plan was consistent in highlighting the need to address the prizemoney levels of the four Group 1 races conducted in South Australia,” he said.

The announcement marks a huge turnaround in SA racing’s fortunes after the Goodwood and Robert Sangster were targeted in massive prize money cuts in 2019.

As the impact of the state government’s Point Of Consumption Tax (POCT) started to bite amid lower-than-expected returns to the industry, the two marquee races of the Adelaide carnival lost their status as $1 million races.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Racing SA and the SAJC in this way and the big prizemoney will really put South Australian racing back on the map.” – Sportsbet’s Barni Evans

The Goodwood was reduced to $750,000 while the Sangster plummeted to $600,000.

But there was more pain to come for the industry in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both races carried $400,000 purses in 2020 before each figured in a $100,000 increase during the 2021 season.

They have since remained at $500,000, as has the South Australian Derby, a race that also fell to $400,000.

There were prize money reductions to other races while $2.25 million was lopped from infrastructure spending.

South Australia was the first state to introduce a POCT but the industry’s regulatory body claimed there was minimal incentive for wagering operators to promote racing because the POCT was higher than in NSW and Victoria.

“We have had no choice but to announce these significant cuts … because of the way racing is being underfunded and unfairly taxed by the state government,” then Thoroughbred Racing South Australia chair Frances Nelson QC said at the time.

Initially, 10 per cent of the POCT was returned to the racing industry but that has now grown to 20 per cent.

That figure is still well short of most other states, in particular the 80 per cent received from POCT proceeds by Queensland and Tasmania, and the 50 per cent Victoria will begin to receive later this year.

NSW is getting back 33 per cent.

The amount of money collected through what the SA government calls the Betting Operations Tax grew from $34 million in 2019-20 to $82 million in 2022-23, and that has painted the way clear for brighter times for South Australia.

Last year, in its 2023 annual report, Racing SA published a net operating surplus of $7.14 million, a huge step forward from the $1 million loss announced in 2018.