New Zealand Breaks Into Internet Gambling Sites of Horse Racing

New Zealand Breaks Into Internet Gambling Sites of Horse Racing/ August 2006
As internet gambling sites grow larger each day, demands on the industry for better and more realistic gaming keep getting stronger. Online casino gamblers are no longer happy with the old internet gambling sites games that are simplistic, and most gamblers want to play real games against real people. Well New Zealand has found a way to bring real life horse races to online casino customers’ world wide.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing announced yesterday that they have entered into an agreement with an online internet gambling racing site. As a part of the agreement the company will provide the site with nominated race meetings in order to run a competition from the internet gambling sites.

The first competition of the new partnership starts this Saturday, August 5. The first competition takes place at the Canterbury Jockey Club, and each Saturday the meeting place will be selected and announced.

The internet gambling sites that are now working with New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing is a sweepstakes competition site which is based and run through the internet, and is free to enter. The online sweepstakes site offers players the opportunity to pick a horse, or horses, at each race. The player who returns the most points for their virtual racing picks wins a hefty cash prize. In order to gain points players must accumulate them through wins. The player whose pick wins first place wins three points, two points for the second place winner and one point for the horse in third place. Players can also accumulate bonus points, which are added according to the official tote payout.

Formerly known as the Interactive Gamin Systems, New Zealand's Racingworld Technology Limited launched their internet gambling sites virtual racing game in March. The first version on the game was limited to New Zealand customers, but soon spread and a new harness version of the competitive internet gambling sites game has become one of the most popular internet horse racing games available.

“This type of competition can only increase the awareness and interest in Thoroughbred racing in New Zealand and encourage people who do take part to also follow their selections by backing them on course or at the TAB,” said Paul Bittar, the chief executive of the NZTR. “Our agreement relates only to providing the fields to... [the internet gambling sites site] while the competition remains free, with NZTR reserving the right to renegotiate this agreement if the competition moved to a 'pay to play' scenario.”

The chief executive of the internet gambling sites working with NZTR, Rob Earle, had this to add, “Since launching the...game in March this year, the site has achieved in excess of 10 million hits and 100,000 unique visitors ranking it as one of the most popular horse racing sites in the world.”