African Betting Clan founder Dave Scott together with the well known racing media man and Turf Talk monthly columnist Dave Mollett
The African Betting Clan has the main race named in its honour on Saturday at Turffontein i.e. The African Betting Clan 20th Anniversary Pinnacle Stakes over 1450m.
Passionate Scottish racing man Dave Scott founded the African Betting Clan (ABC), together with a friend of his who now runs another site.
A good Scottish friend of Dave’s, Bob Brogan, runs the site from his home in Edinburgh.
ABC has morphed into a site that was a bit different from the initial intention.
Dave, who is known by ABC members as Scotia, explained, “The initial concept was the Betfair principle. I introduced the Betfair guys to Jonny and Gary from interbet hoping to use the forum in SA. However you could not use punter to punter exchange without holding bookies license.”
Nevertheless, the site quickly became a popular racing chat site and one that also distributed plenty of racing information and news.
In fact the ABC site is often first with breaking news as members can post the news in it’s rumour stage.
It also runs fun competitions and the topics discussed or debated are not limited to horseracing.
There are a number of members of the site who have been regulars since day one.
Bob Brogan explained how he became involved, “I was working with and was friends with a regular contributor to the site called Ian Whyte ( His ABC poster name was No2son and he has sadly passed away). His brother Mark Whyte used to go to the big T with Dave (Scotia) and the lads and he had a few horses including FAIR BRUTUS who was a decent sprinter… I am sure he had a few that died in a tragedy at George Scott’s yard too.
Mark was a terrible tipster and Ian asked me to join ABC to wind up his brother. The rest is history ha ha.. I don’t think I have missed a day on the site since.”
“My best memories are probably stuff I wouldn’t talk about!”
Regarding the site being well known for breaking news, Bob said, “All I can say is I never leaked anything that wasn’t true.”
He continued, “Owning a few shares in the syndicate horses, Budweiser Boy and Miss Diana etc were happy times.. And the support i received from the clan when i was ill, including the Shams who gifted me shares in a few of their runners to cheer me up.”
He said, “Although I run the website, it is a hobby site and pretty much runs itself these days”
He added, “Like everything in racing there has been a fall away, but we still get millions of views per year and we have a core of loyal posters, some of whom have been around for the full 20 years.”
He concluded, “I think we have accepted the fact of the downturn, but we have more readers by far than posters and these days I would say we have 99% positive sentiment.”
The Mission of The African Betting Clan:
African Betting Clan is established for the upliftment of the sports punter, who enjoys a bet on horseracing, football and other sports, enabling them to voice their views and opinions on all aspects of the sport of their choice, free of charge.
Everyone who joins the Clan can discuss a multitude of sports events with a view to increasing the knowledge-base of all interested parties. Horse Racing is by far the most represented sport and we welcome the views of the many owners, trainers, punters and all racing stakeholders, all of whom post their contributions on our discussion forums. Members glean what they want to and discuss selections for the day and the general well being of the sport. Objectives are to provide an insight into racing that was in the main kept behind a large brick wall and to find those winners. The punter now has preferred choices to make and if the sport is to emerge strongly in the face of fierce competition and the corporatisation of its dominant racing operator, we have come to appreciate that all stakeholders need to appreciate each other’s role. African Betting Clan is the catalyst for this to happen.
