In-Race Wagering Providing U.S. Tracks Added Revenue

If you've spent an afternoon at a sports bar recently, you've probably heard some big cheers or vocal frustrations well before the end of an event from fans with their phones set to their favorite sports-betting app. Some of that reaction likely is tied to in-game wagers on events such as a strikeout in baseball, or an ace in a tennis match. Yes, thanks to an appetite for increased wagering options and improved technology, in-game betting is all the rage. In October, The New York Times reported that in-game bets accounted for more than half the money wagered on sporting events through United States platforms FanDuel and DraftKings in recent quarters. To answer that demand and compete with those other sports, horse racing has its own answer to in-game sports wagering: allowing bettors to wager on horses at various parts of a race. In part because racing in the U.S. has been slow to adopt fixed-odds wagering—the category under which these wagers fall—such in-race betting is not yet available here. But racing content from U.S. tracks is being offered for these in-race wagers in Europe and some of the biggest players in this market are seeing positive returns, to which they credit the technology for providing a new way of interacting with horse racing. "Sportsbook customers over the last decade have become used to being able to wager in-running," said John McBroom, commercial director for Total Performance Data, which has developed in-race betting technology being used by major Euorpean-based bookmakers. "If you're watching a soccer game, watching a football game, you can bet during the event. Horse racing is uncompetitive when it's not able to offer the same betting product. "So I think that's huge. Now if you're a sports-betting customer who expects to be able to play during the game, during the event; now you can do that on racing as well." Through TPD partnerships with Equibase, which serves as North America's official database and is a partnership between subsidiaries of The Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America (tracks), as well as 1/ST CONTENT, which already had licensed signals from U.S. tracks to overseas markets for prerace fixed-odds wagering, European horseplayers wagering through major bookmaker platforms are enjoying in-race betting on more than 30 North American tracks. Just as 1/ST CONTENT licensed prerace, fixed-odds wagering on North American signals, it now also licenses the in-running odds product. Simon Fraser, senior vice president of international operations at 1/ST CONTENT, said the technology is providing added revenue opportunities for North American tracks that license signals to overseas bookmakers. "Working with TPD's team of analytical experts has been a responsive collaboration, allowing us to finally deliver a key, new revenue-driver for North American racing," Fraser said. "Deeper audience engagement is our combined goal. It's exciting to see this in-play solution add a welcome new dimension to anyone following racing stateside." In a May 28 release, 1/ST CONTENT said operators using the in-race product have seen increases in betting handle from 5%-10% on platforms supported by bettors in England, Ireland, and other European countries. McBroom said TPD soon plans to add the option for players using sportsbook platforms in South Africa. Interest is spiking as players engage with horse racing in a new manner. "A key part of the product for the sportsbooks is driving more turnover for them, more customer engagement," McBroom said. "This is still a new product. Really interestingly, one of our customers, who's been live with the product for 18 months now, said that in Q1 of this year it had grown 40% year on year. "You're not getting 40% growth in very many areas of horse racing." As for how it works? An algorithm lists the odds offered during different points of the race and horseplayers can lock in those odds in that moment. Those odds change throughout the race based on events in the race and the metrics being considered by the algorithm. It's a high-speed, fixed-odds wager. Those metrics are provided through GPS tracking. London-based TPD says some of the metrics involved in the algorithm include prerace odds, live position of horses, speed of horses during the race, and biometric horse data at ultra-low latency—updating 10 times per second during a race. TPD uses proprietary machine-learning models to generate live betting odds throughout the race, creating a new betting experience for participating customers and new revenue opportunities for the sport. Information has always been a strong point for horse racing, especially in the U.S. Today's technology has gone well beyond fractional times in fifths and estimated horse-length margins. "Thoroughbred racing is a data-driven sport and the incorporation of this positioning data to power in-running wagering opportunities is another step toward capturing the broader sports-betting fan who enjoys action throughout an event, and one of the first of many innovations to come from this rapidly expanding dataset," said Equibase president and chief operating officer Kyle McDoniel. Included in that information are in-running measures of stride length, stride frequency, and sectional timings enabled by the saddle-cloth GPS tracking. This amount of quality information actually could give racing an advantage when it comes to the in-event wagering landscape. Those involved believe, at the least, racing can provide live-race wagering that keeps pace with the broader sports-betting marketplace that has seen its customers shift to in-event wagers. Ben Hutton, head of international racing at Entain, applauds racing's advancements in this area. Entain is one of the world's largest sports-betting and gaming groups, operating both online and in the retail sector through brands such as Coral, Eurobet, and Ladbrokes, just to name a few. "This is a timely, automated product innovation which gives our brands and customers the live service that they've been demanding for a long time," Hutton said. "All the requisite variables are incorporated and accounted for, ensuring total peace of mind and speed of integration for anyone looking to add this breakthrough feed." McDoniel said he's glad to see the data provide new wagering opportunities for fans and new revenue opportunities for tracks. He's also looking forward to finding more ways that this detailed data can connect people to racing. "Now that we're more confident in the accuracy of the data because of some of the newer hardware that we've deployed, we're really starting to try and figure out the best ways to use it to tell stories and help people understand racing," McDoniel said. "How do we use it to bring new fans on board? You look at baseball and what they've done with launch angle and all those different stats—and it's the same with every other big sport. So how do we start doing the same thing?"