Melbourne Cup 2020: Tabcorp’s most important person who sets the odds for the big race

David Beirne is the man who either makes or costs Tabcorp tens of millions of dollars every Melbourne Cup.

Tabcorp GM of Trading, Dave Beirne in the company’s Sydney offices. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

David Beirne is the man who either makes or costs Tabcorp tens of millions of dollars every Melbourne Cup.

Beirne laughs at that description, but as the betting giant’s general manager of trading he and his team play a vital role on Tuesday for what is the company’s biggest day of the year.

Tabcorp will take more than $100m in bets on the Melbourne Cup from about three million Australians.

Like the millions of punters around the country, Beirne will keep a close eye on where the horses are positioned as the big race nears its conclusion just after 3pm on Tuesday. Though given his role there is a difference.

“I’ll watch with our book position in mind,” Beirne tells The Australian. “When I’m actually watching a race I’ll usually only have eyes on the ones that are poor for us.”

“So when they’re around the 400m mark or into the straight I’m following those runners. In that way I suppose it is similar to someone who has a ticket, who is following their own runner.”

Beirne and his team in Tabcorp’s Sydney office are tasked with setting the betting odds for each horse in the Cup, and every race or sporting contest the company fields a market on.

It is of crucial importance. Setting a winner too high odds will mean punters flock to it and the payout is large. Too low the odds mean customers will, in a high competitive market, look elsewhere.

He says it is more akin to a trading room floor at a company tracking the financial markets, given his team each work on four computer screens mixing trading platforms, news sites, vision or sports coverage and the Sky Racing broadcast feed.

Beirne comes from a bookmaking family. His grandfather was a bookie and his father Dominic was a leviathan on the Sydney scene in the 1980s, reportedly having just about the highest turnover of any bookie in the world at one stage.

While Beirne had good enough marks to study medicine or law, he jokes that he’s squeamish — so law and commerce it was. While the subject matter was dry by comparison, law requires the good problem solving skills that bookmaking does. The family trade beckoned and Beirne worked for a sportsbook from 2008 that would become part of the Luxbet corporate bookmaking venture Tabcorp established. He took on his current role two years ago.

Beirne’s trading team uses a mixture of automated algorithms and old-fashioned scouting nous and market knowledge to set the odds, combining quantitative analysis with old fashioned bookmaking knowledge and intuition.

“The Melbourne Cup requires a nous and art to it though. There’s the international cohort of horses we have to track and how they may rate. There’s customer sentiment too, so we have to mix the two together,” says Beirne.

That is what makes the Melbourne Cup unique, he says. No bookmaker will ever cheer home a favourite like champion racehorse Winx. But a race like the Cup also brings in infrequent punters who don’t religiously study the form guide.

“That’s the history of the race. People will bet on a name, colours, and jockey. There’s a lot of that one-timer better in there. And that is priced in, in a way. Where we might see a weight of money going. So that is a lot different to what an ordinary race might be like.”

Which is why Beirne winces at the mention of Michelle Payne’s famous 2015 Cup win on 100-1 shot Prince of Penzance. A lot of sentimental money went Payne’s way given she was on an outsider and a rare female jockey in the race, so her win was not a good financial result for Tabcorp.

Two years ago, Tabcorp’s biggest ever concern was Who Shot Thebarman and there was a sigh of relief when the horse with the catchy name finished well back.

This year, Beirne admits to concerns about Surprise Baby, Russian Camelot and Prince of Arran, which has the in-form female jockey Jamie Kah aboard.

His tip? He doesn’t go far past a couple of favourites. “I’d steer you to a couple of international runners. We’ve been enamoured with Tiger Moth, it would be a phenomenal performance given how lightly raced it is.

“Sir Dragonet, having that start in Australia and winning a high quality weight for age race [the Cox Plate] is hard to look past. I’m not going too wide with those tips though.”