The shortcomings of place bets become most obvious when there is an overwhelming favourite.

When Tiber finished second in the Chairman's Sprint two years ago at 100-1 and paid exactly the same $11 place dividend as Silent Witness, the 1-20 favourite, everyone should have realised something was wrong. Apparently, they didn't and no attempt has been made by the club to reform place betting.

The current system allows a kind of proportional return, wherein the ratio of place investments on the three placegetters are compared with each other for payout calculation, instead of treating each placing as a separate and equal contest for one of the three placings as per the superior Australian system.

Those in favour of the current method argue that it minimises situations where the club has to stump up extra money to make payouts up to the minimum and, last Sunday, that was the case.

Had the Australian system been in position, with 77.5 per cent of the place pool bet on Absolute Champion, clearly a payout of 33.3 per cent of the place payout pool for his dividend would have required a very significant addition to the pool.

There was $6,155,310 bet on Absolute Champion for a place and there would have been an available payout pool of $2,648,877 per place - even a return of $10 for every $10 bet would have required more than $3.5 million injected by the club. At the minimum allowable dividend of $10.50, that extra input would have risen to over $3.8 million extra that the Jockey Club would have to pay punters.

Yes, that is significant and you wouldn't want to run a business like that, but it would be terribly short-sighted to believe that all things would remain equal in the equation.

Using the actual figures from Sunday and the same takeout rate, place payouts for Planet Ruler ($74) and Regency Horse ($49) would have looked a lot more attractive than the $18 and $15.50 punters actually got.

And other runners were more attractive too - second betting choice Lucky Baby calculated out as about a $28 place payout, King Encosta $42 and Adaikali $82.

Now, in truth those payouts for Planet Ruler, Regency Horse and others would not have happened if punters knew what dividend they were getting - something they don't. They would see place dividends like $28 for the $55 second favourite Lucky Baby and back them down, of course, but they would at least know they weren't staring at a likely $10.50 dividend.

The corollary to that is what proponents of the current system are missing - the real-world truth that the display of one tote approximate (not a range) and a longer place dividend on horses other than the hot favourite will attract considerably more place turnover than currently and that will balance up the payout situation.

The current system has removed any incentive to have a place bet when there is a really dominant favourite. Dominant favourites win more often than they lose, discouraging punters from betting much against them and, overwhelmingly, they run a place, slaughtering place payouts for the other runners.

But if the punter wants to take on the hot favourite, backing say Regency Horse for a win and a place, he does so under the Australian system knowing that an overall profit is possible even if the favourite wins.

Furthermore, the benefits of this payout system extend beyond those races which worry the ultra-conservatives, who can't see past the big make-up payments.

Place betting would grow and actually become a worthwhile aspect of racing, instead of the half-hourly picking of the pockets of gullible punters it is currently.

And place turnover wouldn't have to grow too much to outrun poor old Bracket Win, which didn't quite make it as far as $2.7 million in total bets on the weekend.