There’re Off!
Clive Allcock Off the reading list that is. With the cessation of Practical Punting Magazine after the retirement of its long serving and excellent editor in Brian Blackwell the final of three magazines that over my time have looked at punting techniques and systems have now all ceased.
I never wrote for Turf Monthly but always enjoyed the read and especially the ratings and writings of one who became a colleague at PP when I joined up writing regularly for them on 1991 – The Optimist.
Racetrack magazine kindly published sporadic articles of mine in the days of Graeme Clarke as editor but when PP started I moved over there with some occasional articles before my regular column got underway. All now gone! Why? I know there are many factors but background issues are a decline in gambling participation from 70% in 2012 to 50% in 2019 and thereafter from surveys in NSW. Other relevant contributors are the rise of poker machines in the 1990s and the increasing interest, especially by young gamblers, in sports betting more recently. And, of course, the internet.
At times I would interview a trainer or spot a horse to follow but with publishing deadlines it may have run and, perhaps, won before the magazine hit the shops.
Even with the internet there are delays for magazines that do not affect other items such as tipping services. Articles looking at selection techniques now abound on the net and perhaps for the average punter, who or may not be interested in somewhat less impulsive choices, there are already so many approaches available online that a magazine attracts fewer readers.
Nevertheless, at this time the magazine appears gone in Australia. One survives in Britain and maybe someone will try again here but it looks like a hard market!
