Stronach Group-owned 1/ST Technology and NASCAR have announced an agreement in which 1/ST will be its exclusive parimutuel wagering partner with a path towards rolling out the horse racing style wagering pending regulatory approvals.
Pooling the Wagers
The handle for one of NASCAR’s most popular events on the schedule, the Daytona 500, generated an increase of 40% more wagers this year than last. Therefore, there is reason to believe that fixed odds wagering on NASCAR is on the rise, but parimutuel betting may have also found a home in America’s most popular auto racing organization.
Horse racing, dog racing and jai alai are three examples of sports in which parimutuel wagering is front and center. These are not fixed odds that are locked at the moment the bet is made like those found in other sports, but rather dynamic odds whose final prices are not locked until the event begins. The brain trust at NASCAR believes the similarities between it and horse racing make it the ideal sport to implement parimutuel wagering.
“NASCAR and 1/ST Technology share a commitment to innovation and optimizing the fan experience,” said Joe Solosky, NASCAR Managing Director of Sports Betting. “Together, we aim to create memorable moments for fans by integrating technology with the passion and excitement of NASCAR racing.”
Auto Racing Fits Parimutuel Formula
Many of the horse racing terms associated with parimutuel wagering are unfamiliar to sports bettors. Horse bettors understand parimutuel betting can range from win, place, and show bets to exacta, trifecta and superfecta wagering.
Those terms may be eliminated to make the transition easier for traditional sports bettors to integrate into the parimutuel realm. Instead of using the term exacta (or perfecta), which is picking the exact order of the first two finishers, NASCAR may simply name that “Top 2”.
“I looked at the format of horse racing, and I looked at the format of motorsports racing, and it’s not that dissimilar,” said Joseph Solosky, managing director of sports betting for NASCAR. “One of the things that we’ve seen in the fixed-odds space with the difficulty of expanding NASCAR betting is because, for a multitude of reasons, fixed-odds sportsbooks don’t have the resources or the pricing confidence to create a diverse market list like you see in the NFL and MLB and NBA,” Solosky said. “So, we feel that this pari-mutuel offering for our fans is going to offer a similar market that you’ll see for when they bet on other sports.”
Another positive aspect for sportsbooks is that parimutuel betting is strictly commission-based with no risk as opposed to taking a side where a limited market can prove to be a liability.
“Are people not betting on NASCAR because there’s not a lot of markets, or are there not a lot of markets because people aren’t betting on NASCAR?” Solosky said. “So, this is one of the ways that I think will kind of shatter that glass ceiling that exists right now on the market cap for betting on NASCAR because of the risk-free opportunity.”
