The Pitch: What are the odds gambling's two-tier system will be regulated?
Keeping things remote: A quiet on-course trading day at Naas Racecourse.
FOR the average punter the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies Maiden at Roscommon wasn’t high on the staking radar this week.
But for serious punters the 6:30pm race on Monday was the perfect storm which highlighted the extraordinary two-tier system which has emerged in racing, where two different markets exist outside of the Tote, setting on-course and off-course betting at odds with each other.
Where once the on-course SP was the price that dictated the marketplace, now big betting firms control their own odds setting, where less generous values are passed onto the off-course and online customer, than those being appreciated in the betting ring.
In the Fillies Maiden at Roscommon, a 37.5% differentiation was identified by The Pitch in the price of one of the top six favourites, where all bar the favourite - The Model Kingdom – offered significantly reduced odds away from the track.
The most eye-catching devaluation – although there were greater drops in value – came with the third favourite, Hi Stranger, which was paying out 4/1 at the racecourse, but was priced at just 16/5 with Paddy Power, at the exact same time.
Joseph O’Brien’s winner, Startedwithakiss, paid 5/2 on the SP, but Paddy had a different view, offering reduced odds of 11/5 – resulting in a value of 2.5/1 on the track vs 2.2/1 with the nation’s leading bookie.
Fifth favourite Beautiful Chaos was indeed chaotic, showing 25/1 at Roscommon, but paid just 18/1 over the app, while the sixth most fancied, Rievaulx, was paying 40/1 on course, but was trading at almost two fifths less than that elsewhere, offering just 25/1.
While we focus on just one race, at one meeting and one betting firm – the trend of off-course devaluation is constant – and can be blamed on a heady mix of Covid and a lack of regulation.
Before the pandemic there was greater commonality amongst prices on-course and off-course due to the SIS information sharing service, but that stopped during lockdown when there were no punters and no bookies on course to provide that data.
The big firms began setting their own odds, and will argue that the live race day market is so small anyway - in terms of size of crowds and stakes invested - that the track financial movements are not an accurate reflection and do not consider the race grade, field size and betting make up.
In other words, lower volume markets (on course) equate to inaccurate pricing versus online, where higher volumes dictate a more accurate reflection of the actual values.
The practice of off-course devaluation by the big beasts — Bet365, Paddy Power, Sky Bet, Ladbrokes, William Hills and others — setting their own prices when no information was available from the track, should have gone back to the way it was once live punting resumed — except there are no rules and no regulation.
This has resulted in two markets, on course and off course, and there is an argument as to why the 1,666 punters at Roscommon (average attendance 2018 - HRI) can dictate the market for millions of online stakers.
A significant investor, who we will call John to preserve his anonymity, told The Pitch that he suspected that the odds were not being wholly set by online activations, rather a mix of investment in a certain race and algorithms.
“When Flutter bought Betfair they could see the algorithms of the market in a way which allowed them to see the way the markets should work in their favour, and this is a big game-changer on how they approach their trading strategy,” explained John.
Big betting will also argue – although Flutter chose not to go on the record - that on-course betting does not offer the same incentives as online firms — extra place pay-outs, best odds guaranteed, money back betting and other punter-friendly incentives.
The question now is will Gambling Regulation tackle the two systems that exists in racing, or will it care enough about customers without addiction issues to set a standard of common pricing?
I wouldn’t bet on it.
THE ink is barely dry on the most ambitious broadcast deal across Irish sport, and yet Basketball Ireland believes its pay-per-view plans will begin to make profit within two years.
The Pitch can reveal that basketball fans can expect to pay around €5 per game and somewhere between €30 and €50 for an overall 650-game package, as part of the federation’s partnership with sports streaming service Joymo.
In a €150k exchange – the cost for Joymo to set up the over-the-top (OTT) platform and a number of production and marketing costs – will see revenues return to Basketball Ireland when the streaming service begins to pay rights fees, once the broadcast partnership is up and running.
Additional fees will be paid if certain targets are hit, with a contractual mechanism in place for Basketball Ireland to share in revenues from the Joymo service.
The broadcasting of matches will be in place at the start of the basketball season later this year, where fans will have access to every game from the InsureMyVan.ie and MissQuote.ie Super League and Division 1, along with the InsureMyHouse.ie National Cup.
The platform provided by Joymo will be accessible through Basketball Ireland’s website, while current broadcast rights with TG4 for the National Cup Finals will remain in place as part of the two remaining years on the current contract with the network.
After less than six months in the job, the deal marks a significant piece of work for new CEO John Feehan, a veteran of key sporting organisations – he was chief executive of Six Nations Rugby, British & Irish Lions and PRO12 Rugby.
"Up to now we have seen that basketball hasn’t had a great media presence, given its size as a sport in Ireland, over the past number of years, or even decades, and with our media strategy we should be able to build a significant audience over the next five years of the deal,” Feehan told The Pitch.
“We’ve got to give profile to our Super League clubs, in fact all of our National League clubs and through an OTT platform with Joymo we will now have so much content to share with our audience, and a potential new audience of fans, who will want to dip their toe and have somewhere to congregate to watch live basketball.”
From a user experience (UX) Feehan is confident that the coverage will be fully professional and high quality, and while providing commentary on every single game is an impossibility – much of this will eventually be provided by the clubs, each broadcast will feature live score and timing graphics.
So how big an audience is Feehan expecting in the first year or two of the innovative content partnership?
“It’s very hard to know what those numbers are going to be, we can rely on Joymo and they’re suggesting after year two it will start to make profit for them.”
It’s already looking like the rise of a new era for Irish basketball.
THE heavyweights of Irish sports sponsorship have been announced as part of the Clubforce Irish Sport Industry Awards.
For the Best Sport Sponsorship Award - Spar’s Kellie Harrington campaign, Sky Ireland’s tie-in with the Women’s National Team, AIG’s Effort is Equal activation, Indeed’s partnership of Team Ireland, Energia’s All Ireland League sponsorship and Special Olympics arrangement Gala make up the shortlist.
In the digital segment, the IRFU’s sponsorship with TikTok, Gymnastics Ireland’s Tokyo Games social media campaign, and the Football Association of Ireland’s No Ref, No Game campaign are among the featured nominees.
Other awards, which will be presented at the Federation of Irish Sport’s awards ceremony at the Westin Hotel in Dublin, include Inclusivity in Sport & Physical Activity, Local Sports Partnership and National Governing Body of the Year.
The Pitch will carry the winners next week, with the full list of categories and nominees available at irishsportindustryawards.ie
