Could Online US Sportsbooks Re-Introduce Historical Horse Racing?

Sportsbooks in the US are constantly pushing the boundaries on the betting experience, and DraftKings has reused an old concept in a brand new, pilot project. The DraftKings Replays, launched on March 25 exclusively for Oregon, allows you to bet on historical betting markets for Major League Baseball. The idea is that instead of betting on upcoming games, you can bet on anonymized previous games. It sounds pretty revolutionary, but in reality, this is nothing new, this type of betting technology was actually created in the 1990s.

Anyone who is into niche horse racing, or has been to racinos and engaged with the machines next to the horse tracks, can tell you – this is basically Historical Horse Racing. It is quite a niche form of entertainment, quite popular in horse race betting states like Kentucky, but practically unknown to anyone who only engages with digital betting platforms.

But as sportsbooks expand into new verticals and integrated new products – from event contract betting to microbets – HHR may be something that will crop up among more books in the near future.

What is Historical Horse Racing

Historical Horse Racing was introduced in the 1990s as a means to provide horse race bettors with more options in and around the races themselves. These machines record countless races in their databases, and you can bet on any of these. The catch is that you don’t actually know which race you are betting on – which is where the gambling element comes in. Because if you knew that you were betting on, say, the 2025 Belmont Stakes, you could identify the winner (Sovereignty), and win the bet with no risk taken.

No, with historical horse racing you are given an anonymized racecard. It may give you details such as where the event is taking place, possibly the course style and other minute details. But you won’t get the horse names, jockeys, or exact race data presented. You get anonymous contestants, with betting odds that are like you would have at real events, and then you can place your wagers.

You get all the same types of horse racing bets that you would at a betting site or off-track kiosk. When you finish placing your bets and hit start, the machine may run an animated version of the race (or footage of the real thing), and you get paid out if your bets win.

Legality of HHR Machines

Historical horse racing generally falls into a gray regulatory area because it has pari-mutuel betting traits, but the mechanisms are closer to casino games. The first ever modern HHR machines in the US were introduced at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas. This happened in 2000, and since then, a handful of states have adopted HHR machines. These include Virginia, Wyoming, Kansas, New Hampshire, and where HHR is arguably the most popular – Kentucky.

You will typically find these machines at major horse racetracks in Kentucky like the Churchill Downs venues, Red Mile in Lexington or Turfway Park. Racinos are the main venues where you will find HHR machines, followed by off-track betting parlors and potentially embedded in and around horse racetracks. You won’t really find them in landbased US casinos. HHR are actually a very small niche, and they are practically nonexistent outside the US.

Sports Betting or Slots Game in Disguise?

The big question for regulators is whether or not these products satisfy the requirements to be called sports betting. Or whether they are some sort of sports-themed slot machine. Because from the simple mechanics, there are plenty of crossovers with slot machine design, such as:

• Fast-paced cycles
• Randomized presentation layers
• You can’t research bets
• There is more emphasis on repetitive entertainment than betting-style analysis

You get the odds, pick one of the anonymous horses, and then see what happens in the following race. Critics would argue that is the same as playing some kind of slot machine – only instead of winning if you hit a specific payline – there is always a winning combination at the end of each round and you need to pick which one will hit.

With sports betting, there are more external elements at play. Neither you nor the sportsbook knows what will happen in a live game, and you are both making guesses. The sportsbook guesses with its odds generating sofware, pricing out the different possible outcomes. And you, you are using your sports knowledge and statistical analysis to make an educated guess and pick the right bets.

With historical betting, the house already knows the outcome, and will win so long as you pick a losing bet. The result is already determined, it is just up to you to make a guess here, without any statistical data to base your predictions on.

Historical Betting vs Virtual Sports

If you have only ever used online sportsbooks or never gone to a racino, there is a good chance you have never come across historical horse racing. But you may be familiar with its closest digital product – virtual sports betting. These do not use historical game outcomes but instead use real game data and stats to simulate a virtual game.

For example, you can open a virtual soccer lobby, and see that Manchester United is going to play against Bayern Munich in the next 2 minutes. The team lineups have real players, and the conditions are made to look like a real game that these two are going to play.

Virtuals Live Betting Focus

You can place pregame soccer bets, including moneylines, spreads, totals, and so on. But with virtual sports the more popular option is live betting. As soon as the game kicks off, the teams go at it, and you can watch the game. The difference being, this game is not actually based on a historical matchup but rather simulated using RNGs and pre-programmed statistical models. To make it clear – this edition of Man U vs Bayern Munich never happened – it is completely made up.

On the user’s end, you get to watch a game, place live bets, and enjoy the action in real time with crisp live streams. Some avoid virtual sports because they are run by RNGs, and they may think that the games are rigged in some way. They aren’t, but you have to bear in mind that these simulate future-style events based on data inputs. They are not real past events that are re-packaged to bet on again.

What DK Replays Brings to the Picture

Back to the news that inspired the HHR nostalgia, DraftKings introduced DK Replays back in March, but only for the Oregon market. Granted, this type of betting product is still legally contentious in the US, but releasing it just for Oregon comes across as an educated decision.

This looks like a pilot program to test the waters and see how well bettors respond to the historical betting model.

Game Mechanics

The DK Replays centers on microbets, an area that is equally controversial as the MLB got its sportsbook partners to limit real microbets on their platforms in recent months. This happened after some high profile cases emerged of match-fixing in Major League Baseball. DraftKings Replays allows you to place MLB bets on a pitch-by-pitch basis, on hundreds of thousands of historical plate appearances.

You get randomized pitcher vs batter matchups, with only a bronze/silver/gold form rating, and stats such as batting averages, slugging %, ERA, and strikeout per innings, so you get a good idea of the odds. This is not enough data to accurately tell you who the pitcher or batter is, nor which specific innings they are playing. But you have the conditions for the pitch, and can then place a prop bet on whether the next pitch will be a ball, strike or in-play.

Following this, the real data is revealed, and you either win or lose your bet.

Can HHR Hit a Home Run with Mainstream Audiences?

This is the big question, as it looks like a cautious move to just bring this to Oregon customers without testing bigger betting states or multiple states. For operators, a product like this could tick a lot of boxes – just like it was intended for at horse tracks.

• You can place bets in the offseason/around big games
• Fast-paced markets allow for continuous betting
• More engagement to increase user interaction
• This increases average session time for bettors
• It could focus on popular niches like microbets and player props

These are all massive pros for operators, and they could prove to be a huge hit with players too. Especially if you are looking to bet on some MLB in the offseason, and don’t want to pick futures or look for alternative, international baseball leagues. Throw in the possibility to make microbets and player props – even if you don’t know which player you are betting on – this could add a fresh and interactive side to betting. A side that more sportsbooks are exploring.

Ever Changing Betting Trends in the US

For the goals are changing for sportsbooks in America, and around the world for that matter. Classic sports betting is still the more popular mainstream option for bettors, but a need for alternatives – especially gamified products or ones that can be tied to gamified rewards – are becoming more of a standard requirement and less an exclusive perk at any given sportsbook. Historical betting is quite a leap here, from both a legal aspect and for testing a customer base with a new product. But if it pays off, we may see more of these types of betting products emerge in the US, and then spread abroad.