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The Future of TVG/FanDuel TV: Q&A with Andrew Moore

Some 23 years after it debuted, the TVG network underwent a major shift Thursday, its first day not as TVG but as FanDuel TV. There's a new name and a new direction. Between midnight and noon each day, racing coverage will not exist. Instead, the network will feature a number of shows that focus on sports wagering during those hours. While that may not be well received by TVG's loyal viewers, FanDuel executives insist that racing coverage is not going anywhere. Better yet, they believe they can introduce sports bettors to horse racing and increase racing's popularity and the amount bet on the game. What does it all mean? The TDN sat down with Andrew Moore, Vice President of Racing for the FanDuel group, to get his take on a new era when it comes to FanDuel's relationship with racing.

TDN: As I am sure you know, many racing fans are nervous about the rebranding of TVG and the switch over to programming focusing on sports betting, worried that this is the beginning of the end when it comes to TVG-FanDuel covering racing. Tell us why they need not worry?

AM: This a network people care about deeply and have felt that way for 20 odd years. The talent feels like friends and family to a lot of our regular viewers. They also have very tight bonds to different tracks that we show. It's very emotive. That people are concerned is a testament to what a great thing TVG has been and how much some people love it. From our perspective, we've got to make sure that we keep moving, we keep building and we attract a new audience while at the same time continue to grow and build this great thing that we've spent 23 years investing in.

From a horse racing perspective, we're going to do be doing more. We've got a number of positive things happening when it comes to the content. We will be walking the walk and showing that we are committed to horse racing content. Talk can be cheap but content, deals and commitments will be a matter of walking the walk.

We built something incredible, so why would we change? I know people are saying you're going to sack some of your talent. It's more a matter of we're going to need to hire more people because there will be more races to cover. Yes, there will be some things on in the morning that aren't horse racing that people are not necessarily going to love. But what's been on during that time before has been international horse racing of low quality.

I feel like if we really care about this network, we need to invest in it and this is the most sensible way to invest in it. Leverage the FanDuel brand. We would be doing the network a disservice if we don't lean into this and take advantage of those opportunities.

TDN: During the hours when racing is being shown, will some of that time also be devoted to sports betting? Perhaps, say, with 12 minutes to post at Del Mar, might someone come on and talk about the over-under in the Cubs game? And will there be any opportunities for the talking heads who do the sports betting programs to talk about horse racing?

AM: We will try different things. We will try to do it in a way that fits with the programming in a sense that it doesn't feel jarring. We would avoid a situation where the horses are going down to the start and we switch to a talking head telling you that Mookie Betts is plus 350 to hit a home run tonight and you can make that bet right now with the FanDuel sports book…now let's go back to Matt Carothers and hear what he has to say about this horse's stride.

They are two different subjects and it will never be perfectly seamless. But, we have to do it in a way that is not jarring and is considerate of the current viewer. We will try things. I'd be very surprised if we didn't. Frankly, when there's not a lot going on, if you do it well and have the right people on the air, who's to say that it wouldn't fit? If you're covering Del Mar and talking about the Padres, who are five miles away, that sort of thing would probably work.

It can work both ways. Who's to say we wouldn't have Kay Adams talking about the Derby? What excites me opportunity-wise is how we can feed these things into each other and how they can elevate each other. At the start, we will do things that don't work. That's the nature of taking risks. My job is to grow horse racing. It would be very easy to sit back with our ADW business and say we've got to this position of being No. 1 and, so, we can sit back. That's not the way it works. What is way more exciting is to work on how we can keep bringing in new fans.

TDN: When announcing the renaming of TVG the company also let it be known that it is very close to being able to start taking bets on racing through its traditional sports betting platforms. To have people be able to bet on sports and racing from the same wallet is something racing has longed for for years. Tell us more about the process and what this could mean for horse racing.

AM: We have this massive FanDuel brand which is growing exponentially with sports betting and we are the market leader in that space. We are also the market leader in the horse racing space. They are two separate worlds but there are a lot of ways that they can complement each other, including how we can expose a lot of young fans to horse racing. We felt, in regards to wagering, the best strategy was to put racing into the sports books as a part of ADW wagering and doing so with pari-mutuel wagering rather than fixed odds.

This really started in 2019 when we were working on the FanDuel stand-alone racing app. We leveraged the FanDuel brand, released an app to the market and we learned about customers' habits. What they liked, what they didn't like, all the while trying to attract a new audience. That was launched in 2020. We had a lot of pick up especially during Covid when most of the other sports were shut down.

But it wasn't in the same account wallet and the reason why it wasn't on the same account wallet was because it was really hard technically to do. Sports betting engines and tote engines are different. Tote wallets and sports wallets are different. There has been a lot of technological work that has been done over the past two years to integrate racing and the sport book so that when you log onto the sports book you will be able to bet on horse racing with the same funds you've been using to bet on sports. That was a huge challenge.

We are hoping that we will have this up and running in some states by the first week of October and have more states come on line by the Breeders' Cup. With the Breeders' Cup being such a good wagering product, we'd very much like expose it to our sports betting customers.

TDN: You said the sports book will be taking pari-mutuel bets. That goes against a sentiment in the industry that there has to be a conversion to fixed odds in order for the marriage of sports betting and racing to work. Your thoughts on this?

AM: Fixed odds is an interesting customer proposition but there are regulatory issues and the matter of getting it going in enough states so that it can make an impact. The industry is built on pari-mutuel wagering, as it is in places like Hong Kong and France. There's nothing wrong with that. We've learned a lot through (Betfair), when we tried it in New Jersey and it failed. One of reasons it failed was we didn't have the content and also we could never really stretch beyond New Jersey. Coming back full circle, we are saying, ok, let's put the tote into the sports book because that way we can have all the content and we can also scale out to numerous states because we are already in 33 states with TVG.

I think taking pari-mutuel bets on the sports book has a very good chance of working. Do I think there is a world where pari-mutuel and fixed odds can live together? Absolutely. This is the first step and right now it doesn't involve fixed odds because if we went in that direction we'd be very limited in what we can do with it. Fixed odds is not our focus because it doesn't provide the same opportunities that we will have with pari-mutuel betting. So what we will be doing is giving pari-mutuel every chance of succeeding.

TDN: If FanDuel is successful with its racing product it stands to reason that your competitors will follow. Perhaps, in five or six years, betting on racing will be widely available in the sports betting universe. What sort of opportunity would that be for racing?

AM: We are always trying to grow our audience over time and we will be the first sports book that offers racing. I am very excited about that. We see it as a unique advantage. We are going to be introducing an exiting sport to people that they can watch, make bets on and make bets where there is the chance of a massive payout. Racing has a lot going for it.

When you're talking about the number of people betting on sports you're talking millions. This year, we had more customers on the FanDuel sports book for the Super Bowl than we had in the complete history of TVG. You do not need to grab a huge share of that market to really grow horse racing pools. Eighty percent of wagering on sports is on football, baseball, basketball, hockey, which includes college sports. So 20 percent of the pie left and it includes a lot of sports and racing has an huge advantage over them. If you're not a horse racing person per se, but if you live in New York, you're aware of Belmont, Aqueduct, Saratoga. Everyone knows about the Kentucky Derby. Racing has a very good product that features things other sports don't necessarily have. We have to lean into that edge and capitalize on it.

TDN: So how does the sport capitalize in it? What are some of the ways racing can better position itself to make itself attractive to the sports bettor?

AM: That's the most intriguing part of that, when will customers drift over to racing and how do we execute on that? We will be watching our customer behavior very closely and there's a business fit and there's a customer fit. Suppose we discover that the customers are going to racing at a certain time of the day. This is a complete hypothetical, but let's say we find that for the Thursday night football game we get a lot of horse racing pick up at a certain time, maybe before the game starts. If that's a time when people are actually discovering racing and interacting with racing, we'd love to see the tracks react by offering their best products. Even though it would be Thursday and in the evening hours, how about a major track running and running some big stakes races? It will be a fun exercise to figure out how the customers interact, what customers like and don't like and what we need to give them more of and when.

The post The Future of TVG/FanDuel TV: Q&A with Andrew Moore appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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‘You Can’t Afford To Be Risk Averse In This Game And I’m Not That’

Andrew Black is renowned in the gambling industry, being co-founder of Betfair, one of the biggest exchanges in the world.

However, there is much more to the 59-year-old than being the man who revolutionised betting; he is also hugely passionate about breeding and playing cards.

Black got to the semi-finals of the world Bridge Championships last week and his breeding endeavors at Chasemore Farm continue to go from strength to strength.

He will bid for Group 1 glory at Haydock on Saturday when homebred Brad The Brief (GB) (Dutch Art {GB}) runs in the Sprint Cup while Noble Style (GB) (Kingman {GB}), sold by Chasemore at Book 1 to Godolphin for 525,000gns last year, is well on his way to becoming a top-notch colt after landing the G2 Gimcrack S this season.

From breeding potential superstars like Noble Style to discussing his plans for Chasemore and revealing a recent near-death health scare he suffered last Christmas, Black makes for a fascinating interviewee.

Brian Sheerin: It has been a brilliant year for Chasemore Farm and it could get even better with Brad The Brief in the Sprint Cup on Saturday. You must be looking forward to it?

Andrew Black: I am, assuming we run. It's well known at this stage, he likes a cut in the ground, and I think there's rain forecast for Friday night or Saturday morning at Haydock. He wants it soft, good-to-soft would be okay, but as he's got older, the need for soft or heavy ground has reduced a little because his knees are better now than they've ever been before. In his early days, he suffered from immaturity issues and, as time has gone on, that situation has improved. If the going was good, I would expect him to find things a little hot, but if it's on the soft side, I'd expect him to be in the mix.

BS: He's two-from-two this season, including at Group 2 level. It's interesting that he was in the horses-in-training sale last season. Was that ever a realistic destination for him?

AB: I don't think so. It's interesting that Hugo [Palmer] seems to have done better with him than Tom [Dascombe] did. We have paid a good bit of attention to his knees and it seems to be working. Tom didn't want to campaign him at a high level and was always insisting to us that he was a 90-rated handicapper at best and we should aim quite low with him. Hugo has sorted out an issue with his knees this year and he seems to have progressed. He's definitely moved on this year and to see numbers like 120 beside his name, that's pretty exciting. I think he can do more–when conditions come up right, I think he could pull off a Group 1 win.

BS: Has anything been changed in his training routine to bring about the improvement?

AB: The only thing that has been changed is that, when he came back to Chasemore Farm, we observed that his knees might benefit from being medicated. He's had two separate courses of medication and that's possibly what made the difference as he's moving very well now–he'd always been a bit scratchy. He's a very good-looking horse and is everything that you'd want a sprinter to look like. That little bit more freedom of movement appears to have made the difference.

BS: You have been quoted as saying, “for me, seeing an animal you bred winning a big race is as good as it gets.” Things have been going pretty well of late, not just with horses running in your own colours, but with Noble Style as well.

AB: This year has been amazing for us. You could consider it a breakthrough year. Not only have we had a lot of success on the track, but a lot of the yearlings that we have going to the yearling sale this year are a lot more interesting; we have some good stuff coming through. Noble Style obviously tops the list. He's quite a fiery character and, as he grows up, I think he's going to improve more. He looks like much more than just a 2-year-old to me. His mother [Eartha Kitt (GB) (Pivotal {GB})] didn't do it until she was three. She could have been even better at four but we retired her early as we lost her mother. She won a listed race on her final start at three but, if we kept her in training as a 4-year-old, we'd have got a lot more out of her. I'm certain of that. I was actually out-voted on that at the time, I wanted to keep her in training but we have got Noble Style out of it so I can't complain. I think he's really special. He could be a proper Group 1 horse. I don't even want to say that out loud and I am touching wood as I say it.

BS: What's pretty cool about Noble Style is that the family extends all the way back to Baldovina (GB) (Tale Of The Cat), one of the first horses you've owned. It's a family that you have nurtured.

AB: That's what's really amazing for us. What interested me about Baldovina when I claimed her was, not the black-type on the page, but the fact that there were not many animals in the pedigree full stop. The black-type as a percentage to animals on the page was interesting. Her dam, Baldwina (Fr) (Pistol Bleu {Ire}), was a Group 3 winner, so it was only really Baldovina who had failed. After I claimed Baldovina, her dam went to Japan and produced Jeweler (Jpn) (Victoire Pisa {Jpn}), who won the Japanese 1,000 Guineas, among others. Baldovina amazingly had become a half-sister to a Classic winner after I claimed her for just £17,000. She was one of the first horses I ever bought, so that was a bit of a turn up for the books. We did so well from selling horses out of her that we got her money back many times over. There's always a lot of interest from Japan whenever we go to sell anything from the family. It's an emerging family. We have a lovely Camelot (GB) filly foal, who is a half-sister to Noble Style, and we also have a Frankel (GB) half-sister to him as well. She is now a 3-year-old but unfortunately she could never race but she's a beautiful filly and I think she will produce something for us.

BS: If we didn't know you and know your backstory, we could say that Baldovina was beginner's luck.

AB: In the case of Baldovina, it was beginner's luck, but she should never have been in that claimer in the first place. She was a daughter of a French Group 3 winner who only had the one foal in the UK before she went off to Japan. Not only that, she finished second in her first two maidens before her form fell off the face of a cliff, which happens. She was by Tale Of The Cat, who I felt was an interesting stallion, given it is that Storm Cat line. You don't see many pedigrees as interesting as that in claimers, certainly not fillies anyway, and I think they made a mistake putting her in there. Maybe they didn't appreciate what they had and I was very happy to claim her and take my chance. I thought I made a mistake for a while, and even put her in the sale and bought her back, as I did with Ceiling Kitty as well, but I think that's because I was under a bit of pressure from other people at the time. I had bloodstock advisers who were wondering what I was doing. I had a fair bit of money and they were wondering why I was messing around claiming horses when I should have been buying expensive well-bred fillies. As it happened, she was the most exciting animal that I had at the time, despite the fact I paid quite large sums of money for some very well-related fillies. None of those left the footprint she did at Chasemore Farm. Not by a long way. We got that one right but made other mistakes.

BS: You've obviously got good business instincts but it's interesting that you also trusted your gut in racing and breeding despite the fact you had advisers trying to steer you in another direction.

AB: I would always respect the advice of others. But, at the same time, if you don't learn any lessons and chance your arm every now and again, what is the point? You've got to go out there and do a few crazy things. If you are afraid of making a fool of yourself, you won't achieve much in this game. I never liked looking stupid. Nobody likes to look stupid. But I won't let that stand in my way and, in cases like this, I didn't. I mean, I claimed Beacon Lady (GB) (Haafhd {GB}) after she came last, and she went on to win eight races for us. You can look pretty stupid when you claim a horse after it finishes last but, again, that one worked out. You've got to be prepared to lose money and to get things wrong from time to time. I don't think you can afford to be risk averse in this game and I'm not that. In fact, I'm probably a bit too far the other way. I'm always happy to chance my arm.

BS: I know that you said before that you'd like the broodmare band at Chasemore Farm to be around the 25 mark. I also see that you bought Chachamaidee (Ire) for 200,000gns at the July Sale just gone. What is the philosophy going forward?

AB: If anything, I'm increasing my numbers at the moment. My business life is going very well. Outside of horse racing, I am involved in two industries; one is oil and the other is vaccines. Both of those have had a very good run in the past few years. In years to come, I could have more money to spend, so things have panned out well for me. I think I will probably be spending more at the sales and the plan is to steadily upgrade over time. It was always my plan to upgrade anyway. The idea was, after buying the farm, that I needed to go out there and buy a certain number of broodmares. I needed to stock up, get my processes going and get good people working on the stud. The idea of starting with four or five horses and then building my way up to 30 didn't make much sense. I needed to get up to 30 quite quickly and then upgrade them over time. So that was the plan. That has been playing out and, whether we get good mares like Chachamaidee by going out and buying them or if we breed them ourselves, it doesn't matter to me how we get them. We've got a fantastic team here at Chasemore and we've got a couple of really good clients here as well. We like having the boarders here as it keeps us sensible and it's good to have customers. We're seeing a bit of success, which helps us to believe in ourselves a little bit more.

BS: There's also been a change to your approach to racing. You revealed that you were in the process of selling your share in Manor House Stables around the time that Hugo Palmer was announced as Tom Dascombe's replacement there.

AB: Yes, that's correct. By the time Tom left Manor House, I had decided to leave anyway. The reason why I left is not because I had any problems with Manor House, as I am very happy with what's going on there, but it's just a long way away. We decided to be a bit more supportive of Epsom. The problem with Epsom historically is that the facilities were a little bit weak. That's being resolved and Epsom is becoming a better training centre. Money has been spent on the gallops and there is the potential for more to be spent. It feels like Epsom is on the up and we want to support the training centre, which is right beside where we are. The idea of getting out of your bed at seven o'clock in the morning and going to the gallops at Epsom as opposed to getting out of bed at four o'clock to travel to Manor House also appeals as I am getting old and don't have as much energy as I used to have. The four-hour trip to Manor House is not as attractive as it once was. There's a lot of good people in Epsom as well so I think we'll be a little more involved there. I am always going to send one or two horses to Manor House, just because I want to keep that relationship with Michael [Owen], who's a great mate. We've had a lot of fun together and Hugo is training very well from there now so there's no reason not to send horses there. I just won't be sending the numbers that I used to. We'll have horses around in different places and will have some in Newmarket as well.

BS: But I gather your main interest lies in breeding rather than racing?

AB: Yes, I think so. I have got as much pleasure watching Noble Style winning for Godolphin as if he were mine. I realised that I get an awful amount of pleasure out of watching horses we've bred come out and win. They don't have to run in my colours. The breeding side of things is what has always really interested me. I never interfered too much on the training side of things and always left that up to the trainer to make the decisions. Also, I'm not somebody who particularly likes the limelight in any case. It's not what I am about so, for me, breeding is more interesting.

BS: And what else excites you on the farm at present?

AB: We have a pretty good draft for Book 1 and Book 2 at Tattersalls this year. It will be interesting to see how that goes. We've got a very nice Siyoini (Fr) foal out of a Red Clubs (Ire) mare. He's really quite powerful. We have a Kingman half-brother to Uncle Bryn (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) and he looks pretty interesting. All four of my Book 2 animals are interesting and the pedigrees have improved just this year. We have a sister to Lezoo (GB) [Brogan], for example, by Pivotal (GB), and she is a potentially interesting producer. We have a full-brother to Breege (GB) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}) who is good-looking and there's a number from the Ceiling Kitty (GB) family as well. But, if I had to pick one as being the most exciting on the farm, I'd say it's the Camelot (GB) out of Eartha Kitt (GB). That's a foal and will never be sold. She could be very nice.

BS: You've always had a soft spot for Camelot.

AB: I have and that's just me as a punter. You see certain horses on the racecourse and grow an affection towards them. I absolutely loved Camelot. I thought he was a fantastic physical specimen and always wanted to produce a nice horse by him so I have favoured him over a lot of stallions, in truth. Camelot and Kingman, I have spent a lot of money on those two stallions.

BS: Of course, you were a professional punter at one stage in your life. Has the breeding replaced the punting or do you still bet?

AB: I still bet. I've had a bad year betting for whatever reason. I've had some good years but this year has been terrible and I don't know why. I just can't seem to get moving. Can't get going. Every time I think I'm on a run it just peters out. I've lost loads of money gambling this year, it's just been one-way traffic, but I don't bet like I used to. I still bet in reasonable sizes when I bet but I rarely spend a day betting. I probably place four or five bets a week whereas, in the old days, I'd have been betting heavily every day. I think I'm getting old. I find it a little bit boring and can't follow the form like I used to. The time I would have spent studying the form, I now spend studying the matings and looking through pedigrees. The breeding study has replaced the betting study.

BS: That's twice now that you're after saying that you are getting old.

AB: Well, I had a heart attack last year. It was actually quite a severe heart attack and it happened on Boxing Day. Maybe that's why I feel old. It was a good thing in many respects as I have lost five stone since then and I am doing a bit more exercise now. It has been a good year for me apart from that. I got to the semi-final of the World Bridge Championships last week and knocked out the World Champion in the quarter-finals. That was amazing for me. I take Bridge pretty seriously and play on a team. It's a big thing in my life and I came so close to winning the semi-final. Mentally, I'm in a pretty good place and that showed me that, if I can still compete at the highest level playing Bridge, my brain is still okay. I think I'm in a good place. The heart attack has been a good thing for me. I'm on God knows how many pills now to keep things steady but they're working for me and my blood pressure is low and I'm very calm. I try to stay in that calm place and I spend a lot of time thinking, which is what I most enjoy. Listen, I see myself as getting old but I am perfectly happy with that. I am 59 years of age and the heart attack scared the shit out of me. It was pretty scary to contemplate one's own death so, having failed to lose any weight for a long time, it became a lot easier to make the effort. I got some positive impetus out of that and I just have to build on that now.

The post ‘You Can’t Afford To Be Risk Averse In This Game And I’m Not That’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Week in Review: Industry Needs to Embrace Fixed-Odds Wagering

Monmouth Park announced last week that it will begin to offer fixed odds wagering starting May 7, opening day of the meet. That was the good news. The bad news was that fixed odds betting will begin with a cautious rollout and without the major players in the sport on board.

Starting Saturday, bettors on-track at Monmouth will have the choice of making traditional pari-mutuel bets or placing fixed odds wagers. Two areas of the track will be designated for fixed odds and the bets can only be made through tellers. The minimum bet will be $1. Any wager calculated to return a profit of $5,000 or more on a win bet or $2,000 or more on a place or show bet will be subject to approval. At the start, the only track available to patrons will be Monmouth Park.

It's a bit disappointing that the bets will be limited to on-track patrons at first. Without having an on-line outlet, the handle will likely be very small at first. According to Dallas Baker, who is the head of international operations for BetMakers, the Australian firm that will deliver and manage fixed odds wagering at Monmouth Park, it won't be long until New Jersey residents can bet on-line. Some regulatory hurdles need to be cleared and when they are, the on-line bookmakers in the state licensed to accept sports bets will begin to take fixed odds racing bets. There are no current plans to have traditional ADWs like TVG, Twin Spires and Xpressbet accept fixed odds bets.

Saturday, will mark an exciting development. For years, the sport has been debating the importance of fixed odds bets and whether or not it should be part of racing's future. Now, finally, it will be offered by a U.S. track on U.S. wagers and we can start to see how it all plays out and whether or not players will gravitate to the new form of wagering. Fixed odds betting has been particularly successful in Australia, where it has led to a sizeable increase in total handle, which has boosted purses, and has been the most popular form of wagering in the U.K. for decades.

Should fixed-odds betting catch on, it will go a long way toward solving what is a huge and growing problem for the sport. With the computer-assisted players dominating the pari-mutuel pools, the everyday bettor has no idea what price his or her horse is going to go off at. You might bet a horse who is 4-1 going into the gate and it gets pounded down to 2-1 at the last second. Win or lose, that leaves a very bad taste in the bettors' mouths.

Recognizing that, Monmouth had adopted a marketing slogan for the fixed odds bets, “the odds that you bet are the odds that you get.”

While fixed odds can help with the massive problem of shifting odds, that's only one small part of the picture. Will it help to grow the sport? That's the great unknown.

To work, fixed odds wagering will have to lure some sports bettors over to racing. As things stand now, the pari-mutuel form of wagering doesn't fit into the model of on-line sports betting, but fixed odds do. If a sports bettor could place a fixed-odds wager on Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo) at +900 in the GI Kentucky Derby, that might be something they'd be inclined to do. The sports bettor is always looking for action and even obscure sports such as ping pong have attracted a surprisingly large amount of handle. Sports betting is a huge business and if racing could tap into just a sliver of the market that would mean significant gains.

“There are opportunities in front of us, specifically in sports betting, that offer us what I would term probably a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” NYRA CEO and President David O'Rourke said at last year's University of Arizona's Race Track Industry Program's Global Symposium on Racing. “Our content isn't on those platforms yet and we have the opportunity to actually do that. There's a lot of hurdles to get there. I know there's a panel on fixed odds and that's a debate, but in the end I believe, and I think our company believes, you have to give the customers what they want. We do have a great product–pari-mutuel is excellent, it's great specifically in the exotics, but there is room, I believe, for proposition bets and for this content to live side by side. And I think as these sportsbooks grow and acquire customers, that's just a huge distribution channel for us.”

O'Rourke isn't wrong, but this won't work if the product is not a good one. A different form of fixed odds betting was already tried in New Jersey, and it was a bust. Betfair, which offers exchange wagering and is wildly popular in the U.K., began in 2016. Four years later, the plug was pulled. Betfair was handling so little money that it no longer made economic sense to keep the platform operating. Betfair failed for a number of reasons, but the main problem may have been the content it offered. All of the top tracks, including the Stronach and Churchill tracks and NYRA, did not offer their signals to Betfair. What was left were tracks like Turf Paradise and Penn National. There just wasn't an appetite to bet on those smaller tracks.

So far, fixed-odds betting is saddled with the same issues. Baker said that about 15 tracks have signed up and that within a few weeks on-track players at Monmouth can also make fixed-odds bets on those signals. But BetMakers has not signed up any of the same premier tracks that Betfair never landed. That is a problem.

Baker is hoping that fixed odds will eventually prove to be so successful that tracks will come to the realization that it is something they need to be a part of.

“I'd like to think that once we start to show the model, we will prove that the sky isn't going to fall down because of fixed-odds wagering,” Baker said. “We're not expecting a miracle solution day one, to flip the switch and everything has changed. This is something that is going to take at least six to 12 months before it starts capturing the attention to the extent it needs to do before we see any great results. We hope this will speak for itself, that this is a really good solution for the racing industry. We hope the results speak for themselves and make it a no-brainer for other tracks to become involved once we can get rid of the fear factor. Once it starts speaking for itself, it will become an obvious decision for other tracks to be involved.”

Baker said that NYRA has expressed interest in selling its signal to BetMakers for fixed odds betting.

That would help, but it's going to take a lot more than that. It's understandable that tracks want to proceed slowly and let a place like Monmouth be the guinea pig. There is a possibility that fixed odds will do nothing more than siphon money out of the pari-mutuel pools and not grow the pie. That wouldn't do anyone any good.

A future sport without fixed odds and ties with on-line bookmakers is not a pretty picture, not with the way sports betting is dominating the landscape. This needs to be given a chance. And that means the top tier tracks coming on board. It means working behind the scenes to legalize fixed-odds bets throughout the country. It means looking at ways to involve the ADWs. It means taking these steps sooner rather than later.

Yes, it's still early in the game and, yes, having fixed odds betting at Monmouth is one small step in the right direction. But it's just one racetrack in one state taking bets on only one track and offering them only to those who are at the track. One would have hoped this could have hit the groung running. That hasn't happened. Hopefully, the best is yet to come.

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RMG and Flutter Form Partnership Agreement

Racecourse Media Group (RMG) and Flutter Entertainment have agreed to a long-term partnership through 2028. RMG, a media and data rights holding company owned by 34 racecourse shareholders, and Flutter, which is the parent company of Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Bet's agreement will involve streaming rights and other key areas of the RMG business. RMG and Flutter will work together to leverage the latter's marketing and promotional assets to grow turnover, engagement and interest on racing conducted by RMG's racing product.

Martin Stevenson, CEO of RMG said, “We are delighted to collaborate with Britain and Ireland's largest betting company, Flutter Entertainment, which gives both companies the opportunity to work together to promote RMG's racecourses and the sport.”

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