February 2016 Derby. File pic

With the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC) in Mahalaxmi in the throes of a financial crisis, the last thing it needed was further trouble at the tote. Now, its nightmare has been realised with the scrapping of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. With the Mumbai racing season starting on November 20, the RWITC had a committee meeting on November 10, where the scrapping was widely discussed with some suggesting that there could be debit/credit card machines installed at the tote machines in a first ever for the history of the sport. This though has not been finalised. Bookies everywhere have stopped operations and only betting at the tote is going on. The bookies are not going to operate for a month now, till they have enough cash flow. In total there are 35 bookmakers that operate in Mumbai. Each of them pays Rs 40,000 per day to the RWITC per stall. They fear that they will not make enough to cover these costs.