We’ve all seen the commercials for the IPhone where it states “there are over 90,000 apps that you can get for your phone.” That is overwhelming; but at the same time compelling. People right now, somewhere, someplace are downloading an application for their phones like the drunk dialer (don’t dial drunk, especially your boss!), purely on the long-tail or buzz.
Jay Graziani of majorwager.com looked into some gambling apps recently on his website. Let’s have a look at what gambling firms are offering their players.
The Card Counter App – This one made the most headlines. Yes, you can use your phone to count cards at a casino. Useful, you betcha. Banned, yep.
Fangraphs Baseball Betting App – Scores on your phone, so yesterday. D/l the neat Fangraphs app and you are on your way to making bets on the game with cutting edge stats, probabilities and more. Want to know how that single with one out in the 7th increases the teams chance to win? Want to know fair odds if you are playing the game at a Vegas casino, or betting the game in-running at betfair for our UK friends? This app tells you. it has built-in stats for every play, every team and every player from 2006 onwards. On your phone.
Poker Cruncher App – Calculate odds, random hand odds, all sorts of neat stuff to make you (or give you a chance to be) a winner? Yes you can.
There are several others, like IbetNFL, Sportsbook and more. In addition, almost all online gambling sites offer a seamless transition to IPhones to help their business for those who can play such places legally (a good deal of the world outside North America)
Being a blackberry user I have never tested these apps, but being a bettor and a marketing geek I can say that the proposition is not lost on me.
What these companies doing is simple: they are providing betting value for their clients (for a betting game) by taking a whole pile of data (odds changes, probabilities, hand history’s, baseball and football historical stats), crunching it, and delivering them in alert form, or real time information form, right on your PDA to willing bettors.
The key point in this : data. These app makers and software makers are using free historical data and adding value to it, to help their business and grow whichever sport they are pushing. Try to do that in racing – fat chance. Data is locked up and costs serious money. Real time betting info is even licensed. To offer something like this in racing an enterprising software maker, or racing fan would have to pay money to do it (and not a tiny amount). And with a dwindling market for this, it simply does not get done. If one of the big cats who control the data wanted to offer it, they would charge an arm and a leg to horse bettors for the service, and it would probably not be very good anyway. Apps work because enterprising entrepreneurs offer a service, perfected by trial and error and otherwise to serve a market and survive. In other words – so not 2009 racing.
Right now the gambling world is rounding third while we are stuck in the dugout.
An IPhone app showing neat racing video or results sounds really great, but it provides little value, and almost zero viral growth. To provide value and something different that catches on and helps people make money at betting we need data. With it so protected, expect racing to be passed by with other enterprising gambling games taking the lead, and racings market share. With archaic data deals made for the pre-internet days in an internet world, we made our bed, and unless things change, it appears we are going to have to lie in it.
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There are a couple of interesting international apps. UK’s Racing Post has a nice iphone app that has news, racing cards, results, “tipsters” (picks basically), stats and videos! While the cards aren’t data rich by any stretch it’s somewhat on par with what you’d find in a program.
The Melbourne Cup also did an app this year that had near real time results, a venue map (which could have benefited from using the built in GPS), photos, news, event, guide, history and trivia. While this one isn’t as much about data it really highlights that they’re reaching out to both existing customers and potential customers at all levels… players and more casual fans.
There’s no doubt that data locked behind a pay wall is huge barrier. The only thing about racing data that differentiates it from other sports is that not anyone can collect it so there’s more of a cost associated to it. Does it have to be locked up behind a pay wall forever? Probably not. I’m sure there’s someone smart enough out there to figure out how to still produce quality product and leverage it for growth.
Dean,
You touched upon an excellent strategy to drive mainstream adoption: open up your data and encourage others to add and derive value from your product. Apple’s iPhone (by allowing 3rd party dev’d apps) as you mentioned is a great example.
If the Jockey Club wants to grow handle, they should make every possible shred of Equibase’s racing data freely available for all to use, manipulate and improve. You’ll probably end up w/ some pretty cool apps by enterprising people and it won’t cost the industry a dime to develop. It won’t make the Jockey Club money directly, but it will help bettors improve their chances at the track and handle may start to grow.
Thx for another thought provoking post.
What about trackus Dana?
Trackus has Keeneland as a client. They have charted data that I think is their own, they offer it out (speed, velocity figs, beaten lengths and so on) on the KEE website. Developers take that data and run with it, creating some handicapping tools for apps and regular betting via the computer?
I have no idea, just throwing that out there.
Steve,
That’s actually a strategy on mine with Twitter. The Knight Sky mentioned on a Barntowire board that journos wouldn’t want to use T coz they’d be giving away potential stories, but in fact that’s exactly what i like to do, in the journalistic version of what u describe. I tweet stuff i hear for others who do it professionally to follow up on and build. For instance, If I hear a stallion is moving, I tweet, trades can pick up, follow up, publish —> news out, syncing development to reportage w/out too much lag time.
The problem w/your scenario and JC is that JC is in aggressive mode to make money. they hire the suits, like recently retired alan marzelli, for instance, to put the wall street push on things. i’ve been in meetings with these guys years ago, and, whew, they’ll put the screws on you, fast!
I’m looking at the Trakus site now. It’s crazy to me that a technology data company uses PDFs for FAQs… I think that speaks volumes about the mindset in the racing industry.
from the Trakus FAQ pdf:
Business Goals:
Working with its partner tracks, Trakus operates systems for a daily fee (to offset the cost of equipment and labor). Trakus graphics are incorporated into various displays: simulcast, television, internet, and mobile.
The company is also seeking to form a joint venture with industry partners to aggregate data for consumer use.
——
I wonder how that joint venture part is going? Perhaps one or more of you journalistically inclined folks might want to follow up on that!
I found this on a blog: “Despite there now being technology available to track every horse in every race at every track, the industry has not implemented the technology. I think most fans know about Trackus, which is currently deployed at Keeneland, Del Mar and Woodbine. Is the Trackus data part of the official record? No. In fact the tracks that are paying for the Trackus service can’t even get the data from the vendor in some cases!”
http://www.startingate.com/blog/?p=34&cpage=1
I dont know if it is true or not, but tis what I found.
I seem to remember Keeneland offering it out before on their website. Maybe someone can chime in and help forgetful me.
I’m going to be releasing some software over the next few days that bring some new ideas and innovation to analyzing horse races in a much simpler manner. It will be applicable to any race, at any track.
It will be the first of a number of applications to allow racing data be consumed and manipulated by horse fans.
The problem beyond opening up all the data is that if it were open, everyone would be using it differently. Handicapping is way more complex than poker or card counting, which leads me to believe there isn’t a killer app out there mostly because there isn’t a killer, sure fire way to win at racing. The only way to find this out is to open the data up and see though. I’m not holding my breath.
Totally off on a tangent – I’m really skeptical of Trakus beyond just the chiclets. As someone who works for a manufacturer of high fidelity wireless products, I’m more interested in exactly how their tech works. I don’t see it on the website, I don’t see performance test of the gear….I don’t see anything. Just them porting the ‘data’ they’re gathering into fancy graphics. How are they getting the data? How accurate is that data? I can’t take them as a serious handicapping tool without an explanation of how it works beyond just some drawings. It seems amateur-ish for the level of technology they’re producing based on theire “how it works” cut sheet on their website. They say it’s proprietary….but I doubt it.
Robin – looking forward to that!
o_crunk – you mean you couldn’t find any detailed information on their pdf FAQ? (LOL!)
I’d like a TwinSpires app to making wagering easier. I can’t say that I’d ever do any kind of handicapping on my phone but I would definitely use things like real-time changes, results, odds and charts.
Robin, it would be great to see what you come up with.
I am going through some of the apps and software for betfair racing, developed by those folks who have access to their API. Pretty amazing stuff, and way ahead of here. I wonder if CDI would let developers into their code? I am betting not.
Most US data providers, who seem to come out of the US racing industry, seem to follow a strategy of protecting their data manipulating their customers, trying to drive them in the direction THEY think we should go, isntead of letting us pull them into new growth strategies.
Look at how the online poker rooms have handled data. Yes, they have to protect the integrity of the game, but they also allow players to collect information, usually for free. They have figured out that many of today’s young bright minds look at analyzing the data as an intellectual pursuit which keeps them playing the game.
Why shouldn’t racing do the same thing?
Good point CBedo!
Sid,
You’re a definite Twitterphile and you’re using it in a way that’s helpful and informative to others.
Your experience w/ the JC highlights an industry philosophy that’s suffocating potential. For instance, I don’t think the NFL could’ve predicted 15-20yrs ago how powerful fantasy sports would eventually become. I’m sure it wasn’t on their radar at all. But, because their statistical data was freely accessible, it allowed others to use, manipulate, and create new applications.
I recall hearing that the NFL once considered charging fantasy leagues for data. But that would’ve been incredibly stupid and too much like a JC / racing industry strategy.
Fantasy players spend more money “consuming” the NFL’s product than the avg fan. For instance, the NFL Sunday Ticket makes billions driven by fantasy players. And the irony is that fantasy players tend to be the type of people (college degreed, professional, statistically oriented) who once gravitated to horse racing.
steve, excellent example w/NFL and fanatasy.
Continuing the Discussion