attheraces To Charge For Content
Pubs and clubs, which have picked up the attheraces television channel at no extra charge since the daily horseracing service was launched on May 1, will have to pay for the service from Jan. 1, 2003.
attheraces senior executives stressed on Tuesday that at-home viewers will continue to receive the channel as an integral part of the Sky Digital package.
The channel provides a 14-hour, seven-day-per-week feed, which covers 49 of Britain’s 59 racecourses.
Customers of the Sky business package, which covers 40,000 pubs, have been told that from Jan. 1, the attheraces service will cost £100 (plus VAT) per month as a stand-alone premium channel.
Ladbrokes To Sponsor Grand National
Ladbrokes has given fresh respectability to the British Mascot Grand National after agreeing to sponsor next month's renewal of the madcap contest at Huntingdon.
Britain's biggest bookmakers stepped in following the collapse of Internet firm Netbetsports, who had been due to support the event again on Sept. 29.
The deal, signed on Tuesday, gives Ladbrokes the option of continuing its sponsorship for two more seasons.
The Mascot Grand National sees more than 100 entrants, all dressed in mascot outfits, engage in a 200-metre dash that includes six obstacles.
attheraces is planning to show the race live with the runners, who again promise to include several foreign entries including one from the United States, being challenged to raise as much money as possible for the NSPCC, The Association of Children’s Hospices and the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice. Among the rule changes: neither running spikes or trainers will be permitted, and all competitors will have to wear mascot costumes and big boots.
Russian Hackers Crack Don Best Site
In what might be the loudest alarm for Internet sports books, one of the industry's leading tote services admitted last week that Russian hackers had penetrated its system.
Officials with Don Bests' line service said a group of what appears to be savvy Russians are attempting to disrupt the powerful provider of offshore odds.
Dana Corbo, president of Don Best Sports, confirmed last week that hackers had found their way into the system and retrieved personal client credit card information.
He said the company has good reason to believe the hackers are in Russia and has called in AT&T and the FBI to help find the perpetrators.
Sportingbet Enters P2P Sector
Sportingbet, the online bookmaker, teamed up with TradingSports, a supplier of person-to-person betting exchange, to enter the P2P betting market.
The launch of Sportingbet121 gives customers the opportunity to place or match bets against each other on a range of different sporting events. TradingSports will provide the back-end technology for the exchange while Sportingbet will provide the customer base and marketing.
The TradingSports Exchange builds links with gambling sites around the world, creating a central pool of P2P bettors, and according to the company, it is this potential volume of bettors that attracted Sportingbet to the TradingSports business model
Hong Kong Going Forward With Soccer Betting Laws
News reports out of Hong Kong have a proposed legislative initiative that would legalize soccer betting in the area moving forward.
According to a report in the Hong Kong Standard, the soccer gambling bill will go ahead, but restrictions on the means of betting and provisions for tax and donations to charity are likely to be imposed to appease those concerned with legalizing the activity.
The proposals could be discussed by the Executive Council as early as October, when it resumes after the summer recess, the Standard said.
The government has estimated that football betting would put only HK$300 million to HK$800 million annually into the public coffers.
Woods Center of Attention Heading Into Final Major
Golf's final major of the 2002 season gets underway Thursday as players tee-off for the PGA Championship at Hazeltine Country Club in Wisconsin.
Once again the center of the betting action revolves around golf's hottest property, Tiger Woods. The American will try to become the first player in the history of golf to win three majors in the same year twice. Only Ben Hogan has won three majors in the same year before.
Woods had a chance to become the fist player to win the Grand Slam of majors, but finished the British Open in sixth after a disappointing third round.
Woods, though, is a double-edged sword for bookmakers. The high-profile golfer has global appeal that brings heavy betting on his side, no matter how poor the odds are from a punter's perspective.
Bookies try to balance between generating large turnover and making sure their assets are protected. A Woods win usually means good paydays for punters, but if he loses bookies take in record amounts.
Premiership Season Kicks Off This Weekend
If the PGA Championship isn't enough to wet the appetite of bettors and bookmakers everywhere, betting action in Europe and the United Kingdom is expected to be high this weekend as the FA Premiership season gets underway.
Manchester United is favored to win the league title by the majority of bookmakers, with odds ranging from 5/4 and 11/5 to end the season on top of the table.
Arsenal, which last season won both the league title and the FA Cup, is also near the top of many bookmakers' lists of odds-on favorites to repeat its title run. Odds for Arsenal range from 13/8 to 7/4.
Baseball Strike Could Hurt Sports Books Before American Football Season Starts
No sports book operator will tell you that the baseball season makes or breaks his operations. But he won't tell you that the season isn't an important part of the business, either.
If the Major League Baseball Players Union elects to go on strike, which could happen by the end of August, it could be devastating for some operators who are relying on baseball betting action to carry them through to the start of the football season.
Alistair Assheton, general manager of VIP Sports, a company that operates a handful of offshore books, said that football is the largest bet sport, representing around 36 percent of total action for his company. That action is split roughly 50/50 between college and NFL games. Basketball action represents about 30 percent for VIP books, again with a 50/50 split between college and pro action.
Assheton said baseball represents 21 percent of total betting action, but his firm uses a different method when dealing with baseball bets. He said VIP uses a 10-cent line, meaning the difference between favorite and underdog is 10 cents, instead of the 20 cents used on other sports. The line is less rewarding for the operator and cuts the margin from approximately 5 percent to only 2.5 percent, but does have appeal to more punters.
"A strike in baseball would not be good for us, but nor would it have a terribly significant impact on our revenues," he said.