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Offshore racebooks or U.S.
Pari-Mutual horse betting websites? It's similar to deciding whether you
want to vacation in Europe or stay home and go to Disney World or Las
Vegas. It all depends upon your priorities and your budget.
The following are comparisons of the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Cost
The advantage belongs to offshore racebooks, but it rises or diminishes
depending upon style of play and bankroll. Offshore racebook sites offer
bonuses to establish a new account or to replenish an old one. They can
be as high as 20 percent and rarely are less than 10 percent, so it pays
to shop.
Some sites also offer rebates depending upon level of play, a sore point
with race tracks, which complain the web sites are able to do this
because they don't have the expense of actually conducting a race meet.
This is one of the reasons the horse racing establishment lobbies its
friends in government for laws to curtail offshore betting. Even if a
bill to this end were passed, it would be almost impossible to enforce.
Neither offshore racebook sites nor race-track sites charge a fee for
opening an account but there are hidden costs that must be taken into
account. For example, the system run by the TVG television network
charges 25 cents per bet, up to a maximum of $19.95 a month. For a
casual player, this can be a substantial burden. Someone who bets, say,
$50 a week -- $200 a month - is paying a 10 percent tariff for his
action. Throw in the 20 plus percent taken out of the pools and you're
creating a situation almost as confiscatory as the lottery, the worst
bet ever created to pillage bankrolls. For a significant player, someone
who bets several thousand a month, this is a minor annoyance, like
tipping the clerk at the cashier windows.
New York OTB exacts an outrageous toll at the other end, cutting
winnings by a purported 5 percent. This is such a misleading figure that
if a merchant were to make it, he would be in legal jeopardy. In
figuring the surcharge, New York includes the cost of the bet and then
goes to breakage. This creates a worst case scenario in which the
surcharge can be as high as 50 percent. Take someone who plunges big
time on overwhelming favorites. A 1-10 shot pays $2.20. Then OTB takes
its 5 percent, which comes to 11 cents. Because the minimum allowed by
law is $2.10, that is what the bettor gets, but it is only half as much
as he should have been paid.
(* 1/28/04 someone from
the New York OTB office sent R411 an e-mail disputing this claim, "there
is no 5% surcharge on winning bets. You are credited with the on-track
price and always have been no matter what the balance in your account at
the time of
the bet". )
An even-money shot, which
pays $4.00 only returns $3.80, so the 5 percent becomes 10 percent. In
fairness, there are domestic operations, which charge at neither end,
content to take out their cut in the conventional manner. Connecticut's
On the Wire, which should be the paradigm, is an example.
Offshore racebook sites do not charge for bets and offer full race-track
odds in the majority of situations. However, because they are booking
the action, they all have limits, usually in the area of 300-1 to 500-1,
on payouts. Most also have a maximum on how much can be taken out of a
single race.
One final factor to consider. Offshore sites do not withhold any
percentage of winnings for Uncle Sam, unlike race tracks, where 28
percent is raked off the top of four-figure payoffs. However, U.S.
citizens are responsible for keeping their own records and paying up
where it applies.
All of this makes it essential for a player to know his style and
preferences before making an educated decision.
Banking
The domestic bet-takers are making inroads into ratcheting up the degree
of difficulty for making a deposit into offshore racebook accounts. Many
major credit cards now refuse to allow their customers to use plastic to
fund offshore betting accounts. This roadblock isn't unsurmountable.
Some offshore sites have created dummy corporations, which have names
that don't suggest gambling, to facilitate credit card deposits. Efforts
also are underway to extend the ban to other means of making deposits in
offshore accounts. To date, however, they have met with little success
and it is still fairly easy to fund accounts via sources such NeTeller,
Fed Ex and Western Union.
There is no discernable difference between offshore racebook or
track-owned sites when it comes to making withdrawals, although some
offshore sites have limits on the number of withdrawals a week or a
month they allow before tacking on a fee. Again knowing how you are
going to use an account and shopping for the best terms for that type of
wagering are essential.
Security
This is where the state or race track run operations have the biggest
advantage. A player knows where his money is and has the peace of mind
of realizing that it is not going to disappear into the night. While it
is a rarity, offshore sites have gone bankrupt and disappeared, taking
their customers' money with them. The best insurance against this is to
search for a company with a long established history.
Convenience
Offshore sites allow both web and toll-free phone bets. Most onshore
sites have only phones and some don't have enough operators to handle
the load on racing's biggest days, such as the Kentucky Derby and
Breeders' Cup. In other words, the days when people most want to play.
The one edge the track-run operations have is they accept wagers right
up to "they're off" or in the case of the over-reaction of some tracks
to the Breeders' Cup Fix Six scandal, the time the first horse enters
the gate. Some off-shore sites cut off betting up to three minutes to
post-time, although others are more lenient.
Variety
Offshore web sites not only offer every major and most second-tier
racing circuits, some give players the option to try their luck at
greyhound racing and jai alai, which is extremely rare for domestic
operations.
Also, some traditionally managed sites have extremely limited menus.
This is another area where New York is the blueprint for how not to run
off-track betting. In an effort to protect the local product, the
state's off-track betting can accept only a few out-of-state
thoroughbred signals during the day and none at night. The various
systems in California also have a less limited array of options than
many competitors. Worse, you must maintain different accounts to bet on
Santa Anita and Hollywood. Again, Connecticut's On the Wire is the model
for how it should be done right, with virtually everything legally
available anywhere in the country open to its customers. This includes
some greyhound tracks and jai alai frontons.
However, something no on-shore site can offer is the opportunity to
switch with the click of a mouse to a full agenda of sports wagering.
Not even Las Vegas can offer this to anyone outside the state's borders.
Thanks to the tremendous pressure and influence of the NCAA and the
various professional sports leagues, this is unlikely to change in our
lifetimes.
All things considered, there is no perfect system. But on balance,
given the bonuses, rebates, variety and privacy offered by cyber sites,
they are most players best bet.
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