Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes decision: Horse racing and off-course betting in India comes to a halt; when will it return?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to pull out the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes has caused the horse racing community a lot of strife. A sport that usually deals with cash, cash and more cash for making bets and paying out the punters, has been hit hard by the latest decisions brought out by the centre.

With the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 scrapped, the races in Chennai, run by the Madras Race Club, were cancelled on Wednesday. The Bangalore Turf Club and the Royal Western India Turf Club could not conduct the initially-scheduled off-course betting for the Kolkata races either.

Off-course betting is where the clubs make most of their money, so the fact that they cannot do that particular part of their business will hurt.

The Delhi races and the Bengaluru races for Thursday and Friday respectively were also cancelled, because the bookies are not confident they have enough Rs 100 notes to be able to guarantee they can pay out the punters.

Racing in India, across the country, is likely to be hit for a week. BTC chairman N Harindra Shetty said he hopes to have the races in Bengaluru up and running by next Wednesday.

"The bookmakers and punters are not operating for a week at least and until then racing will come to a halt," Shetty told Deccan Herald. "Our next on-course racing is November 18 and we hope to have things sorted out by then.

"If other centres stage racing next week then we may have inter-venue betting but I don't think anything will happen until next Wednesday.

"The move has impacted our business but we should be able to tide through. The next month or so will be very difficult. BTC makes more revenue through off-course betting and it definitely has hit us hard."

RWITC chairman Vivek Jain also admitted his club will also be badly hit. "The RWITC, like other clubs, will be hit by falling investments on the tote, bookmakers' revenues and intervenue royalty income," Jain said.