Kalistan

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Kalistan inaugurates Annual Horse Race circuit in Sulari
Sulari Book Makers Syndicate takes over Sanctioned Horse Racing in Empire
Sulari, Duchy of Suldanor
March 30, 5670


Horse racing, previously informal and non-standardized, is finally becoming an sanctioned sport in Kalistan

Kalistan has long enjoyed informal horse races. Horses in Kalistan are historically difficult to come by with wild breeds having vanished from Kalistan's grasslands millennia ago, and domesticated animals having only been reintroduced in Kalistan within the last 120 years. But new horse populations, which have grown from a few hundred animals to a fully self sustaining stock, because of a selective reintroduction programs in Vrassa, beginning around Port Swedes, have led to a more regular and also more popular sport of racing. And now the sport has finally become sanctioned in Kalistan, and is well on its way to providing race lovers and betters a new hobby.

The first fully sanctioned hippodrome, or horse racing track is being built in Sulari, at the Sun City Resort and Casino. New Kalistani Horseracing Authority Director Michael Jenkins, who is in charge of overseeing the sanctioning program said this new track will allow Kalistanis to watch Kalistan's first fully regulated and sanctioned horse races. "The Majatran breeds that have been bred in Vrassa for more than a century, since they first arrived in Port Swedes when the navy of the Kingdom of Wrnuke was stationed there, have produced faster and faster horses," said Jenkins. "The horses we have now can match the speeds of racehorses around the world. And therefore it is time to bring this sport into sanction, for the protection of riders and horses. This includes health and safety standards, as well as standardized track lengths, conditions and rules. We are building a fully formal sport around a hodgepodge of different rules, requirements and local customs, to ensure that everyone has a level track, so to speak."

The legal sanctioning of horse racing in Kalistan will bring several other tracks of varying lengths and conditions into compliance: There are currently tracks in Dana and Bozo River as well as Sulari. "Sulari's track, which is built to international standards, will become the norm in the Empire, and the new Kalistani Horse Racing Authority will then work with the Dana and Bozo tracks to bring them into compliance. Additional tracks are planned for Senvias, Port Swedes, Kaliburg, and Nevaras City, and once they are completed, they too will be added to the circuit."

The Circuit will allow local horses to race for prize money, but most excitingly, it will also allow local gamblers to bet on race outcomes. "The main driver for this sanctioning is the book makers here in Sulari," said Jenkins. "They were complaining to owner of the Dana and Bozo tracks that they should standardize their tracks so punters can more easily make odds. The syndicate was challenged to put their own money behind a League, as an investment, you see, and so they contacted the Ministry of the Interior, took a loan against future earnings from the Bank of Suldanor, and here we are. The planned tracks are privately owned: The one in Sulari is owned by the Casino for example, and the bookies make their money back in a flat fee annually for certification of a track, which is a percentage of the house take. Its all above board, both the track owners and the syndicate make their money back, horse owners can now turn horse breeding into a profitable business, and gamblers get to satisfy their gambling itch at the track."

Along with new standardization and welfare standards for the horses and jockeys, a new standardized parimutuel and off-track gambling system is being developed by the Syndicate. Brent Albertson, Book Makers' Syndicate spokesman said, "We need to make sure that the live feed from any given track is completely live and direct, so that results are instantaneous, and people can have confidence that they are seeing a live race, so they will know that their bets are actually fair and someone isn't taking advantage of delays in feeds or odds." Albertson said new off-track betting parlors already are using the fiberoptic infrastructure to ensure that the feeds are live and instantaneous across the Empire, and latency in these specialized lines is brought to a minimum. "We really benefit from the improvement in information technology infrastructure that the Empire has been focused on for the last twenty years."

The Syndicate says it runs specific data collection centers to ensure odds are not only immediate based on nationwide betting, but also that customers have those live when placing their bets at the parlors. "Sanctioning will bring about a whole new secondary industry that exists to support the gambling part of horse racing. The syndicate, which makes their money from vigorish, relies on confidence of the public to continue to earn their commissions. If betters don't have faith in the televised results of each race, they will stop betting. It only works if the bookmakers are absolutely transparent in all that they do, from gambling odds, to honoring all payouts, to standardized rules, training conditions, race conditions, and health standards and programs for horses. They are obsessed with fairness and transparency, and their work with the Interior Ministry to sanction this sport shows not only their dedication to that fairness but their willingness to fully invest in horseracing."

Albertson said that online gambling won't necessarily rely on live odds, due to latency in the internet. "What we want to set up for our online components is a system that rewards primarily exotic bets and parlays. Those are easier to calculate odds for on a bet by bet basis, and when the parlay is proposed, a computer can calculate the odds based on general event odds we can work out one time a week. For example, when people do a parlay for a football game that say the QB for the Black Bears scores a touchdown in the third quarter, we already know what his odds of scoring a touch down is, what his third quarter performance rating is and what the defense's stop run and stop pass ratings are. We look at all of that stuff day to day. So if a better chooses to bet on that weird thing specifically, a computer can give him odds in a second, so he can choose to bet or not. That's not the same thing as parimutuel gambling, which is the primary method of gambling on a live event like a race."

The stock of racing horses in Vrassa is now large enough that populations will be transplanted to both Suldanor and to Green County in Ananto to take advantage of grazing territory in these two duchies. The goal is to reintroduce the horse to sufficient enough populations that Kalistan can begin to support wild populations once more, to allow genetics to take their natural course, and only race the domesticated breeds. For now, the reintroduction program has not gotten off the ground just yet. Meanwhile, a fully sanctioned nationwide circuit is just a matter of years away.

@LaModa