Having reviewed its funding allocations for the full calendar year 2019, The Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB) has backed plans for live sectional timing and tracking data to become available at every British racing fixture by the end of 2021.
The group has confirmed it will collaborate with media rights holders and selected tracking partners, the BHA and the RCA to ensure future ambitions for timings are met. It has also outlined that it will contribute a total of £0.9m over the next three years to the operating costs at fixtures from 1st April 2019, in line with certain criteria and a racecourse implementation plan agreed with the relevant rights holders.
The contribution to the fixture’s operating costs for the provision of this service will allow the media rights holders and relevant tracking partners to invest further in developing tailored solutions. Accurate and fast data for all races is widely regarded as beneficial in engaging new audiences, while also offering bookmakers the opportunity to develop more compelling betting products in an increasingly competitive market.
This technology will also provide key data-based evidence for industry priorities including equine welfare, integrity and regulation.
Further affirming its commitment to utilising data to strengthen integrity and partnerships, the group also confirmed the existence of a major data sharing agreement with a number of leading bookmakers.
Betfred, Ladbrokes Coral, Paddy Power Betfair, Sky Bet and William Hill have all agreed voluntarily to share with the Board race by race betting data from both digital and retail channels for every British racing fixture from January 2017 onwards.
This data collection agreement has been negotiated by the Levy Board’s Betting Liaison Group (BLG), which is managed by the HBLB Executive and includes the five betting operators, racecourses, horsemen and the BHA.
HBLB has invested significant resource in this project to ensure that data is accurately and securely captured by appointing PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as its data collection partner. Each bookmaker provides its data in confidence to PwC, which supplies HBLB with a single anonymised and aggregated dataset.