Ladbrokes launches $10 million maiden bonus scheme, set to ramp up racehorse ownership 

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Bookmaking powerhouse Ladbrokes plans to expand its investment in horse ownership and continue to focus significantly on racing as its main betting medium as the company yesterday unveiled a $10 million scheme aimed at the grassroots of Australia’s thoroughbred industry.

Entain, the parent company of corporate betting agencies Ladbrokes and Neds, yesterday revealed it would complement its portfolio of horses in training by introducing the Ladbrokes Owners Incentive Scheme, which will see the registered owners of any thoroughbred maiden race winner pocket an additional $2,000.

The scheme will officially launch in Tasmania on June 1 with discussions underway between Ladbrokes and other principal racing authorities across the country to add the $2,000 bonus to more than 5,200 eligible maiden races run in Australia each season.

Entain’s executive director of stakeholder engagement Karl deKroo told ANZ Bloodstock News that the Ladbrokes Racing Club and the owners incentive scheme demonstrated the company’s commitment to the racing industry.

“We are a business that is looking to grow our presence and we’re unashamedly doing that through a racing-first approach,” Queensland-based deKroo said yesterday. 

“We are very active in racing club sponsorship through Moonee Valley and Melbourne Racing Club through to the three clubs in Townsville, Cairns and Mackay that we announced [on Monday] and the racing club here in Brisbane. 

“A big part of our approach is to get people to the track and to experience racing. I think during Covid we were all fortunate that racing continued when a lot of other forms of sport didn’t and there was very much a new audience that got an appreciation for racing through that period but we can’t take that for granted. 

“We need to give people a deeper engagement and really make racing exciting and one of those avenues is definitely ownership.”

The corporate bookmaker, which is attempting to make up ground on market leaders Sportsbet and Tabcorp, made a lowkey entry into corporatised racehorse ownership, purchasing Great Barrier Reef (I Am Invincible) for $250,000 late last year for the Ladbrokes Racing Club and added Godolphin’s three-time winner Kanazawa (Lonhro) for $160,000 in February through Inglis Digital.

Ladbrokes was also active at this year’s select yearling sales, teaming up with trainers to buy young stock at the Magic Millions and Inglis sales. 

The club currently has 19 horses and dogs across thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing and the new entrant into the market will be welcomed by yearling sale vendors given the softening in demand from owners in the syndication segment for much of this year’s sales season. 

“The aim is to build our ownership experience across the three codes of racing. At last count, we’ve got five thoroughbreds and Great Barrier Reef is the ready to run horse we’ve got there and we’ve bought a couple of yearlings at the Magic Millions sale and another one at Inglis, so we are slowly building out the team that we’ve got,” deKroo said.

“It is recognition I think that owning a thoroughbred these days – and there’s obviously a lot of microshare and syndication options out there – that for the everyday punter owning a thoroughbred is a little bit out of reach given the way the market has changed.

“We also know that [ownership] is really important for the growth of racing because there’s nothing like the feel of owning a horse on race day. 

“What we want to do is give that racehorse ownership experience, not just on race day but in the build up to race day and the like where you’re getting direct communications from the trainers, getting updates out of trackwork and trials. It’s really about building that connection to the core product and, for us, we are very much a racing-first business.”

Chris Waller trains Great Barrier Reef, as he did for his original owner Coolmore, while Kanazawa has been placed with Steven O’Dea and Matt Hoysted in Brisbane while Peter Moody will also train horses on behalf of the Ladbrokes Racing Club.

As the Ladbrokes Racing Club expands, deKroo expects horses to be wearing the bookmaker’s red and white silks in the majority of Australian states.

“We are only successful if the racing industry is successful, so we definitely see that as part of our remit,” he said. 

“We need to come up with ways that make racing engaged to a broader demographic and a broader audience and that is why some of these things we are rolling out at the moment are really important through Ladbrokes Racing Club but also the maiden bonus we’ve launched today.

“There’s a lot of focus on the big end of town, the big prize-money increases that have come there, but we probably haven’t really seen it through the grassroots, and certainly in some of the states where funding is a bit more problematic. 

“That is why we are really excited that we’ve launched this in Tassie because, regardless of how fast your horse is, there is a cost involved to get them to the racetrack and it is similar no matter how fast they are.

“If we can do a bit more for owners who win their first race at a maiden level, that is great. They feel a bit better about it and maybe they look at getting a share in another one.”

Tasracing chief executive Andrew Jenkins said the “game-changing” owners’ incentive scheme would go directly to the heart of the state’s thoroughbred industry and encourage reinvestment.

“While the cost of owning and racing horses in Tasmania is less than many of the mainland  jurisdictions, we need to constantly find ways to better support and encourage owners who are the lifeblood of the sport,” Jenkins said. 

“Without horse numbers there are direct impacts on field size and wagering returns which impact the overall health of the industry and the hundreds of people it employs.”

Entain has spent significant time and money on original media content, purchasing slots in Perth’s inaugural Western Trilogy, and the Ladbrokes Racing Club and the owners’ incentive scheme comes at a time when the government is examining higher regulation of the saturated Australian gambling sector, which is experiencing plateauing turnover. 

Just this week, Racing Victoria foreshadowed prize-money cuts as a result of declining betting revenue amid an uncertain funding forecast when its joint venture with Tabcorp expires in 2024.

Entain is also awaiting ministerial approval for it to become New Zealand’s official wagering partner in a 25-year deal, while it has been mooted that the international conglomerate will also make a play for the soon-to-expire Victorian wagering licence.