If the US is the room, sports betting is the elephant everyone wants to address…you arrive at 2021, where US bettors have an unprecedented knowledge of sports betting.
“Point spread,” “moneyline,” and “totals” now mean something even to the casual sports fan. The past three years have seen a remarkable increase in layperson sports betting knowledge.
Naturally, that’ll have a huge impact on horse racing.
Horse race bettors–especially casual fans–now have an entirely new vocabulary they can leverage to bet on races. Historically (and even nowadays) horse racing has been dominated by the parimutuel structure. Odds and payouts change based on the wagers that come in from around the world. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for race tracks and horse racing tech providers.
Dr. Laila Mintas says: “Fixed odds will certainly help the cross-sell of racing to sports betting players; it’s not a good experience for someone used to fixed odds to back a horse at 5/1 and get paid 5/2 through the pari-mutuel system.”
“The opportunity for fixed odds betting,” she continues, “is in taking the sportsbook player who has a $50 football parlay on a weekend and giving them the opportunity to place $20 win bets in a format and presentation style which looks like their existing online sportsbook […] this is about bringing betting players to view racing as another sport they can place bets on.”
