Sports betting expected to dominate conversation at 2018 RTIP Symposium

TUCSON, Ariz. – The most prominent topic at the Race Track Industry Program’s annual racing symposium this year is not a racing one. It’s sports betting.

Beginning Tuesday, racing officials from around the world will gather in Tucson for the RTIP’s Symposium on Racing and Gaming for two days of discussions over topics deemed to be worthy of discussion. In addition to welfare and integrity and marketing and simulcasting, the topics that perennially populate the agenda, three panels scheduled for the two days will address sports betting, more than any other topic.

In actuality, the surfeit of sports wagering panels is the extension of a trend that began at racing conferences one year ago, after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging a federal law prohibiting states from legalizing the practice. In May, the court struck down the law, and since then, sports wagering has been established or expanded in a number of racing jurisdictions, including at racetracks in New Jersey and Delaware.

Tuesday’s agenda includes one of the more common angles related to racing’s discussion of sports wagering, and that’s how racetracks can capitalize on the practice to get people more interested in its own product. That panel, which is being hosted by the Turf Publicists of America, is called “Legalized Sports Wagering Opportunities: How Can the Industry’s Marketers Create an Upside for Racing?”

On the second day of the conference are two more sports betting panels, “Sports Betting: Coming to a Jurisdiction Near You,” and “Sports Betting: A Friend or Foe in the New Era of Sports and Gaming Competition?”

Aside from the sports betting topics, the conference once again has panels scheduled that resemble the typical fare, with two tackling the pressing issue of animal welfare, at a time when concern over the treatment of animals continues to gain support worldwide. One timely panel, entitled “Is It Possible that Horse Racing is One Referendum Away from Disappearing in your Jurisdiction?”, examines the result in November in which Florida voters overwhelmingly supported a measure to ban dog racing.

But a separate panel at the close of Tuesday’s agenda takes a more optimistic view of the topic, with speakers scheduled to discuss how to “enhance the public image” of racing by bringing people into closer contact with horses. Speakers include Anne Hardy, the executive director of Horse Country Tours, a Central Kentucky farm tour program modeled on the Bourbon Trail, and Jen Roytz, the executive director of the Retired Racehorse Project.

Integrity of racing is scheduled to be discussed in several panels, including one that examines the worldwide movement to adopt one standard definition for interference. In addition, other panels will discuss new technologies, including cryptocurrencies and the blockchain, and marketing strategies.