UK-based sports gambling data and content specialist SIS is launching a subsidiary company in the US, with a view to capitalising on the horse racing opportunity in the expanding North American sports betting market. SIS Content Services will focus largely on fixed odds betting, the standard for most sports betting but less common in horse racing, which traditionally relies on a pari-mutuel system. US regulators are said to be warming to the idea of fixed odds horse racing, and SIS believes the time is right to focus on North American expansion. Michele Fischer, who will head up the new business, said: “Right now if you open a US sports betting app, there’s no horse racing. It’s a race to the bottom if you’re not even recognised as a sport. So we know that horse racing needs to make that transition and it’s a transition that won’t happen overnight, but we do believe will happen over time.”
SIS CEO, Richard Ames, also said: “We’re quite realistic about the US market and how the tradition for racing in the US is different than other parts of the world, and the size of the prize will be different, but nevertheless there is a marketplace of many billions of dollars here.”
