Santa Ana Park rolls out mobile betting platform

HORSERACING enters the digital era with the Philippine Racing Club Inc.’s (PRCI) rollout of a mobile payment platform that enables racing fans to place wagers on their smartphones.

PRCI Executive Vice President and COO Santiago Cualoping III said they released the Mobile Offtrack Betting Facility (MOTB) on Wednesday and noted that 1,000 accounts were created within a few hours.

“The MOTB replaces the traditional United Tote system,” Cualoping said. “The platform is convenient, intuitive and easy to use, and allows payments through bank transfer [BDO and Union Bank] and G-cash.”

Cualoping also said they have been scouting for new technology, but decided to invest all their resources in the MOTB after the Philippine Racing Commission (Philracom) announced the limited reopening of physical off-track betting stations, where there are no televisions, social distancing shall be observed, and patrons can only bet once.

PRCI’s mobile betting platform has been approved by the two government agencies overseeing horse racing—Philracom, that regulates the sport aspect, and the Games and Amusements Board (GAB), that overlooks the betting component.

“After the thorough testing and evaluation” conducted by GAB on the MOTB, GAB’s Board approved the use of the mobile betting platform on the win, forecast, trifecta, quartet, Daily Double Plus One, Pick 4, Pick 5, Pick 6 and Winner Take All pools,” GAB Chairman Abraham Kahlil Mitra said in a letter to the PRCI on Wednesday.

For the application’s creation and support, the 83-year-old racetrack company partnered with Bizooku Philippines Inc. to access the services of NorthAlley India Pvt. Ltd., an ISO-certified firm that provides totalizator services and solutions using the latest digital technology, including cloud computing and blockchain.

Cualoping said PRCI has utmost confidence in the MOTB system as NorthAlley’s totalizator has operated on 100 percent uptime since its launch in 2017, serving six of India’s seven racing clubs.

He added that the pivot to digitalization is a strategy that the racing industry must implement in order to keep up with the world’s increased adoption of virtual solutions for all types of transactions.