US to have access to world's biggest pools beginning Sunday

[PatCummings]

Big fields, competitive condition-free racing, the world's biggest pools - and now, finally, access to them. Commingling with Hong Kong begins on Sunday. Some very interesting comments in here...

http://www.scmp.com/sport/racing/art...-united-states

Years in the talking and many months in the making, commingling of bets on Hong Kong racing will commence through the TVG network in the United States this weekend.

TVG sends live horse racing vision into 36 million homes in North America, accepting betting from account holders on the races it distributes, and TVG will begin to accept win, place, quinella and tierce betting on Sunday's Sha Tin program from its United States customers.

In contrast to current arrangements around the world in countries which operate small, localised totalisator pools on Hong Kong races, independent of the Jockey Club's operations, commingling is the process by which those bets placed overseas are then transferred into the "home" pools here to create a larger pool and to standardise dividends.

"Everything is in place to start Sunday and I'm 99 point something per cent sure that it will," said the Jockey Club's executive director of racing, Bill Nader, yesterday. "There has been growing interest in the States in Hong Kong's racing model lately and many commentators there are suggesting that the United States should be striving to emulate it."

"There are things that we have that racing there just does not - big competitive fields and high turnover, for example - and we have a high standard of integrity to go with it. They are all things that educated fans look for."

One of the crucial factors for success will be providing information to help American fans to understand Hong Kong racing and Nader said the club has been working on that for some months.

"We have formed a link between Equibase, the official past performance database provider for North American racing, and our own database so that performance histories can be distributed in a format that will be familiar to horse players there," said Nader.

For bettors on the Atlantic coast of the US, a Wednesday meeting would typically start at 7.15 am and a weekend card at 1am, with Pacific coast time three hours earlier.

[Peter Berry]

Originally Posted by PatCummings

TVG will begin to accept win, place, quinella and tierce betting on Sunday's Sha Tin program from its United States customers.

"Place" as in first, second or third, I assume.