29 OCTOBER 2002

(MEDIA RELEASE)

South African horseracing took a quantum leap forward last Saturday night, when state-of-the-art technology enabled local horseracing fans to bet directly into huge tote pools in the USA on the Breeders' Cup race meeting at Arlington Park Racecourse in Chicago.

It was the first time in South African horseracing history that local tote pools had been combined with pools in another country. The entire undertaking went off virtually without a hitch and has opened international betting markets to South African horseracing - in terms of both overseas people betting into South African tote pools on racing here and local punters taking bets into overseas pools on international racing. Breeders' Cup is the world championships of thoroughbred horseracing. Three South African betting pools on the event were commingled with the Arlington Park pools ? the Win, Place and Pick 6. This gave local horseracing fans the opportunity to bet into the biggest tote pools in the world. The Win pool on the last Breeders' Cup race alone was over R50 million, while R47 million was wagered on the Pick 6, in which punters were required to select the winners of six of the eight Breeders' Cup races. The Pick 6 returned a payout of R4,2 million.

South African punters responded by betting some three times more than a year ago, when only local tote pools were offered. The Breeders' Cup race meeting was televised live on Tellytrack, South African horseracing's exclusive TV channel, and a Supersport channel on the DStv bouquet. JSE-listed horseracing company Phumelela's computerised tote betting system transmitted all Win, Place and Pick 6 bets taken on Breeders' Cup in this country to a tote hub in Maryland in the USA from where the bets were taken into the Arlington Park pools.

South African horseracing fans betting on Breeders' Cup were able to see payouts on each horse as normal with prevailing Arlington Park Win and Place payouts being transmitted to this country and converted to normal R1 betting units instantly.
Phumelela operates horseracing and tote betting in seven of South Africa's nine provinces. In conjunction with Gold Circle, the licensed horseracing and tote betting operator in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, Phumelela has commingled all tote bets taken in South Africa into single national pools under the banner of Saftote since April this year.  "The challenge for South African horseracing is to build an international brand and Phumelela took a huge step towards that on Saturday night," said horseracing expert and bloodstock consultant Robin Bruss. "In South Africa the gambling market has been saturated by the advent of casinos and the lottery. If racing here is to grow, it has to enlarge its betting operations beyond the borders of South Africa. Fortunately we are in a perfect geographical location to embrace the huge markets in Europe and to the west and the east by using satellite and computer technology as Phumelela did with Breeders' Cup," Bruss added. Racehorse owners will benefit directly from extra tote betting turnover generated by international commingling because, as with local tote pools, a fixed percentage goes directly into prize money.

ISSUED BY GILL SIMPKINS
Gold Circle (Pty) Ltd