What to expect when fixed-odds betting launches this weekend

At last, the long-promised arrival of fixed-odds wagering arrives this weekend in the U.S. – at Monmouth Park, to be precise.

And one person who couldn't be more happy – or more harried – is Dallas Baker, who leads international operations for BetMakers, an Australian company that has a 10-year agreement to manage fixed-odds wagering in New Jersey.

He’s been working on this for two years, he told Horse Racing Nation as he drove to Monmouth Park on Thursday. "There's always the last-minute panic, running around."

Baker said he’s 80 percent confident that fixed-odds wagering will begin at the New Jersey track around lunchtime on Friday. If not, it definitely will be offered on Saturday, Monmouth’s opening day.

Initially, fixed odds will be offered only for Monmouth races. “It's proven to be the right decision because there's so much that needs to go into this,” Baker said.

“We're on a gradual path to having more tracks than Monmouth being bet on and a Monmouth Park online app,” he said. “And also then having the sports bookmakers integrated and up and rolling. So that's all in the timeline, it's all in the works. But it'll just be a gradual rollout as we tick off the boxes along the way and the critical moments along the timeline.

"And naturally, the number one critical timeline is the birth of fixed odds on Saturday. Get it up, make it nice and easy, hopefully create a great experience for those on course. And then we'll start building it out week on week.”

Baker doesn’t expect the content to be “fully in motion” for 12 months. ”You're talking about being on online bookmakers, IT timelines and all of that. And having had experience with that, two weeks can become two months can become two years very easily. Again, we're in this for the long haul. And if those things are a month or two late, they're a month or two late. But we'd like to see by Haskell time, which is late July, a lot of the pieces of the puzzle coming together.”

One factor that might present a challenge this weekend is the weather.

"The hardest thing for us to explain is going to be deductions, when there are scratchings after people have had a bet," Baker said. "If there is a bit of rain about, there might be a few scratchings.

"So we're just sort of keeping an eye on the weather because we don't want to have a case where bettings's opened up, we've got a lot of bets, and then half the fields scratch, so people who have taken 5-1 lose half of the money because you got to make the deductions, obviously, to be able to pay back the people who've got it on a scratched horse. So we're just sort of keeping an eye on things like that."

As you might recall, HRN reported in November that officials expected to launch fixed-odds betting by the end of last year.

“We make no apologies,” Baker said, “for being as meticulous as we possibly could have been to make sure that everything is in place to protect the industry, and to ensure that the industry gets the maximum revenues, and that the legislation and regulations are all fully buttoned down, to make it not only a great customer experience for the people who are having a bet, but to ensure every possible box is ticked to make sure the industry gets the benefits that the spirit of the legislation was written in.”

Then there was the timing. Most U.S. tracks are starting their seasons now, and with Monmouth Park as a stalwart partner, “it just makes sense to launch it on day one at Monmouth,” Baker said.

“So a lot of it was about continuing to work through the regulatory process to ensure it's as perfect as it can be, but also the timing for the festivities of it worked well to say that May 7, Monmouth day one, was the perfect day to launch.”

Even with being meticulous, there’s room for error. And along those lines, Baker cited “the fact that God generally hates me.”

“You don't do anything like this and things don't go wrong. As simple as that. It's too big, the tech stack that goes into it. What we're pretty good at BetMakers is making all the complexities of what goes on behind the scenes look very, very easy.

"It's the typical duck on the water. Hopefully, what we're doing is for the user experience, it all looks smooth, and all looks good. But we're certain there's going to be some issue pops up, but we're also certain that we've got the experience to deal with it and the people on the ground there ready to deal with it.

"And if there is an issue, it's hopefully going to be resolved very quickly. We've got all the contingencies and everything in place. So hopefully, if things go wrong, it's not seen by the customer, and it's just us having to fix it behind the scenes.”

There’s “definitely been a bit of a vibe” ahead of the launch, Baker said, “but again, we're not expecting a miracle. If 10 percent on the track know that fixed odds is going there going into the weekend, we've probably done a good job. We know that the game starts now. … This is the little acorn that great oaks grow from from now on.”