Wow, Now That's a Betting Site!

The UK, and its 60 million or so people bet quite a bit on racing. In fact they bet more than the 350 million people in North America (we should hang our heads in shame!). One reason why, is that they do things a whole lot better there, than we do here for their customers.

When I was at a wagering conference I thought about an idea I thought might work to help drag our sorry butts into this century and quench the thirst of bettors who are serious about harness racing. It involved placing some money into a full-blown singular website for harness racing only. On that site we would have all the video, news, programs, pretty much everything to do with harness racing, as well as a handy-dandy link to your betting service to place a bet. If you were a part of the betting website, of course it would have tons of bet tracking, stats and all the rest to keep you stoked and make you a better player. We'd also have access to a database where all racelines were stored (databases for football are a big hit, and they are free like cyberodds.com). Maybe have a trip notes database where we could keep track of trouble lines; each bettor would have his very own personalized, customizable page. Maybe have a handicapper for each track offering value-added in pop ups when you click a horses name. Live paddock reports or cameras would be pretty neat of course. Y'know, things that other businesses do.

Too expensive? Too much work? Ya, I thought you'd say that. After all this business has only received around $4 billion bucks in slot money, so building a website is out of the question. Funny though, in the UK websites like this are doing just fine.

Racingpost.com is offering a look at their beta for their new UK site. I love this stuff, so of course I was hooked and had to find out what they had in store for bettors. It was what I thought they'd come up with:

Want to look at different ratings?

Want live paddock reports?

Want to sort by different factors?

Want replays?

Want easy navigation and scheduling?

Want to look at a database?

Want to scan all oddsmakers and find the best prices?

Want to bet the best price at a click?

Want to have a trip note database?

Want a one stop shop for streaming news, odds, video, reporting, betting and more?

Want to watch crisp, clean live video in on your PC?

They did it. And we should have done this a long time ago.

For a demo of their site, check it out (it opens in a pop up). I know some folks think we are $2 betting degenerates, but this demo should prove otherwise.

Note: When they go through the "best odds" notice the overround (takeout) under the bookmaker. Some are 7%. Oh my head.