Racing results to be used in Kentucky lottery game

A lottery game designed to pay off based on live horseracing results has been selected by the Kentucky Lottery Corporation for a test run next year, according to the developer of the game and the lottery.

The game, which is called “Win Place Show,” will be offered at approximately 45 retail locations in Kentucky for a 90-day period beginning March 24 of next year. Players will be able to buy a $2 ticket that includes three random selections in an upcoming race, with tickets paying out based on the order of finish in the race.

Brad Cummings, the developer of the game, said that “just getting on the calendar” for a trial was a success considering the number of games offered by the lottery. Cummings, a co-founder of the Paulick Report website, began marketing the game several years ago, and the Kentucky trial period is the first time that the game has been selected for any kind of commercial launch.

Payouts for the game will come from 50 percent of the amount bet, well above the existing takeout rate for racetrack bets, with the other half of the pool shared among the lottery, the developer, and other statutorily required recipients. Racetracks whose races are used to determine the payout will also receive a “broadcast rights fee,” Cummings said, though he said he could not identify the racetracks involved until farther along in the process.

The game will have its own app that includes live video of the races that will be used to determine payouts, according to Cummings.

The game had initially been designed to commingle a portion of the money spent on the tickets into the parimutuel pools. However, Cummings said that he elected to use a separate pool for the lottery money after realizing that it had introduced too much complexity into the design.

“The best had become the enemy of the good,” Cummings said.