Internet Betting Makes Debut

While the rest of society has been constructing an information superhighway, the horse-racing business has historically operated on the equivalent of an unpaved, two-lane road.

For many decades, strict laws inhibited the dissemination of odds, results and payoffs from racetracks. No telephones were permitted in tracks. Results couldn’t be broadcast for 30 minutes after a race. Illegal bookmakers concocted elaborate schemes to beat the system: a customer at the track might flash a covert signal to a confederate stationed outside the gates, who would then speed to the nearest pay phone.

Most people who grew up in that low-tech era will stare with wonderment at an innovation called SuperTote, which recently made its debut on the Internet. By typing www.brisnet.com, computer users can gain access to as much gambling data as they could get sitting in a Las Vegas race book.

SuperTote provides current odds at every major racetrack in the country; five tracks can be displayed on the screen simultaneously. (A few seconds after the tote board flashes at the track itself, the odds change on the computer screen.) In addition to win odds, SuperTote includes grids displaying payoffs for all exacta, quinella and daily double combinations. Results and payoffs are posted seconds after they are made official at the racetrack. And for the time being there is no charge for this information that bookies once had to risk prosecution in order to obtain.

SuperTote was developed by Bloodstock Research Information Services of Lexington, Ky., the largest supplier of electronic racing information; and Ladbroke Racing, which owns the Meadows harness track in Pennsylvania, where interstate telephone betting is legal. Ladbroke aims to lure new customers who will establish telephone-betting accounts. One of its rivals in the marketplace, Capital OTB of upstate New York, has already established a more modest electronic tote board on the Internet. Ladbroke is now trying to outdo its competition.

Ladbroke’s marketing director, Tony Mediate, said, “There are only a handful of legitimate big-time operators in this business and everybody is going in the same direction. It’s just a question of how much you’re willing to spend.”

What’s next? Customers who connect to an Internet service such as SuperTote should soon be able to hear the live audio calls of the races. This technology already exists and is being used in Australia, among other places. (Americans who want to hear the fourth at Flemington can do so at www.tabnsw.com.au).

But the most important coming development in this technological revolution will be actual betting by computer. Some offshore operators are already taking bets from home PCs, but the U.S. competitors are vying to develop the right system. “The technology of accepting the bet is not a big deal,” said Scott Finley, technical consultant to Bloodstock Research. “The big hurdle is to get a secure transaction system that confirms the bet back to the player.” One of the players in this field, You Bet! Inc., is expected to start testing such a system on New York Racing Association races this winter.

The final step in this process will be live video race coverage in the home-either by TV or computer. When all of this happens, traditional big racetrack facilities will be an anachronism.

The rapid technological changes exemplified by SuperTote have a momentum of their own, and they are happening without much control from the racing industry itself. The leaders of the business never decided that real-time odds from every track should be made available to every home with a computer. And they certainly didn’t decide that a harness track in Pennsylvania should profit by accepting bets on races from New York to California.

Racetracks were initially happy to sell television signals to off-track betting providers for a relatively small fee, but now these outsiders--such as Ladbroke and Capital OTB--are dragging the industry where it may not want to go. Once a Maryland horseplayer can bet from home, why would he ever set foot in Laurel or Pimlico?

Maury Wolff of Alexandria, Va., a specialist on racing economics, observed, “It’s kind of astonishing that the industry is allowing this to happen. The industry doesn’t sense that once you move in this direction, you’re not coming back.”

Certainly, racing fans don’t want to go back to the days when placing a bet was logistically difficult and wagering information was hard to obtain. Once they are exposed to SuperTote and other imminent technological innovations, horseplayers are going to love the brave new world of computer betting.