Published on 4th April 2016 by Andrew Mills

BetFred’s £265 million deal for the Tote gives them exclusive rights until 2018, but major stakeholders from the UK racing industry are seemingly giving serious consideration to the possibility of a Tote alternative.

Who is part of the plan?

At this point, the group from the UK racing community includes big players including The Jockey Club and Racehorse Media Group, and the group plans to invite other racing bodies and leading bookmakers to their discussions.Talks have already been started with some potential technology providers and international race betting companies, suggesting that this plan is already in full swing.

Rumoured tensions

BetFred’s boss, Fred Done, recently said in an interview on the subject of racing’s new Authorized Betting Partner (ABP) scheme, which limits sponsorship to those who remit a certain percentage of their revenue back to racing, that relations between racing and betting are “worse than they’ve ever been. There’s no trust.”The timing of this plan from the UK racing community to take the Tote monopoly away from BetFred in 2018 may be a coincidence, a Mail on Sunday source stated that the choice was not motivated by revenge, saying. “a racing-owned Tote would return more money to racing as well as revitalize a product which is looking rather old and tired now.”BetFred’s purchase of the Tote required a £9 million remit back tor racing every year, a target the company claims it regular betters, sometimes by up to 50%. BetFred have made no comment on the UK racing community’s plans.