It’s a Gamble, Coming Soon Via Cable TV

In the not-too-distant future, Marylanders will be able to spend a day at the races without leaving their living rooms.

They will watch live action from Laurel, Pimlico and major tracks across the country on a cable television network.

And they will wager by clicking a remote control device they point at the television screen.

This is the vision of ODS Entertainment, a Colorado-based company that has entered into an agreement with the tracks in Maryland and other states to televise their races into the home.

The venture--expected to be launched in the latter part of 1998--could be the salvation for a sport whose business has been declining ominously.

“I’m extremely excited,” said Joe De Francis, president of Laurel and Pimlico. “I think this is going to be a major component in the future of racing.”

When ODS announced this year that it would create an interactive horse racing channel, dubbed the Television Games Network, its plans were greeted with as much skepticism as enthusiasm.

The company acknowledged it has many legal hurdles to overcome: It can offer home betting only in states where telephone betting is legal, and there are eight such states.

An even larger obstacle was the horse racing industry’s resistance to change and the inability of its various factions to agree on national initiatives.

If, say, Churchill Downs’s races were going to be put on a cable channel in Baltimore, how do you structure a deal that pays Churchill, generates a profit for ODS, compensates De Francis for this invasion of his market area and satisfies the horsemen in Kentucky and Maryland?

Amazingly, it’s been done. “We’re accomplishing what most people in racing thought was impossible,” said Tom Aronson, vice president of the network.

“We’re building a base of serious contractual agreements among major tracks and horsemen’s groups.”

ODS offered a financial arrangement that many participants have judged to be a good deal.

If Churchill sends its signal into Baltimore, it gets 3% of money wagered--a fairly standard figure in simulcasting contracts. ODS gets 5 to 6%. And 11 to 12% goes to the track in whose territory the cable network operates.

Racetrack owners know that attendance will drop when regular customers choose to stay at home and bet.

But De Francis and others have concluded they will come out ahead by getting a slice of this big new pie.

ODS has secured deals to televise races from tracks such as Gulfstream Park, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park.

With these commitments, it can go forward with plans to launch its network.

Aronson said: “People who are promoting interactive television have yet to find an application for it. They see value in horse racing: This could be the gateway to a growth in interactive telecommunications.”

ODS’s test of its system in Louisville showed that viewers responded (and bet) enthusiastically and encouraged investors with deep pockets to get behind ODS’s ambitious plans.

The Television Games Network is going to be a slick Hollywood production, what ODS President Mark Breener describes as a “high-impact entertainment product that will capture the imagination of consumers.”

ODS has the technology, the financial resources and, now, the support of major tracks to make the network a reality.

Next it will work for the legalization of telephone betting in more states.