Casino operator Boyd Gaming is celebrating the successful launch of Nevada’s first pari-mutuel race betting app.
Nevada is lousy with sports betting apps but Boyd recently expanded its Miomni Gaming-powered B Connected Sports & Race app to allow Nevada residents and tourists to place pari-mutuel wagers.
The app offers the same broad spectrum of wagers you’d find at a land-based racetrack or Nevada race book. Bettors can wager on races from over a dozen tracks across the United States thanks to the Las Vegas Dissemination Company (LVDC), the exclusive provider of pari-mutuel services to the Nevada gaming industry.
The free app is available for both iOS and Android devices but customers will first have to open a race betting account at any one of the seven Boyd Gaming sportsbooks across the Las Vegas Valley.
Bob Scucci, Boyd’s director of race and sports in Nevada, called the app “a landmark moment for the industry” and for his company. Miomni CEO Mike Venner was equally chuffed, saying the app would ‘help introduce the sport of horseracing to an entire new generation of fans,” particularly those who don’t fancy the unique pungency of a real racetrack.
NYRA BETS WELCOMES BETTORS TO NEW YORK
Over on the east coast, the New York Racing Association just launched a new website, NYRA Bets, that offers online wagers at 250 racetracks worldwide. The site will also for the first time allow out-of-state bettors to wager directly on races at three New York tracks – Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga – rather than having to go through third-party advance deposit wagering (ADW) platforms.
The ability to bet directly means wagers placed via NYRA Bets will count toward those three tracks’ on-track handle, and thus the NYRA will claim a larger slice of the revenue. The NYRA isn’t making any predictions as to how big a boost the new site will provide, but the racing industry is constantly whining about how broke it is, so every little bit counts.
The new site is powered by Dublin-based GBE Technologies, which is also developing an NYRA Bets app. GBE aka Global Betting Exchange was founded by Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond, who also developed the Betdaq exchange (and later sold it to Ladbrokes).
NYRA Bets is now accessible in 22 states, and the NYRA expects to expand this list in the next few weeks once it secures regulatory approval. Punters can fund their NYRA Bets accounts via credit card or Quick Fund, which is the site’s name for ACH (Automated Clearing House).
It’s worth noting that ADW was made possible via the 1978 Interstate Horseracing Act, the same law that the World Trade Organization ordered the US to scrap if it wanted to go on preventing Antigua-licensed online gambling operators from offering similar services to US punters. Instead, the US decided to have its cake and eat it too, although Antigua may soon have the US eating humble pie instead.
