| Welcome to the Entain Edition for July 2024. We’ve been flat to the boards across Australia and New Zealand getting our new brand and website/app ready for launch in only a few short weeks now. The launch of betcha (detailed below) will put an exclamation point on a huge season of transformation here at Entain. We can’t wait to get stuck into promoting and selling some of the excellent racing and sport content coming up and showing all of our stakeholders and customers what our new betting and media platforms can truly do. I had the fortune last week to spend some time with Dr Elliot Forbes, the new CEO of the Racing Integrity Board. Dr Forbes’ ambition for the Board, and his areas of immediate focus gave me great confidence – and reminded me how fortunate we are to have a truly independent body charged with ensuring racing operates with the highest integrity, and with a level playing field for all participants. On a related note, we were very pleased to see the Sports Integrity Commission (Te Kahu Raunui) officially open its doors this month. Customers having the confidence that both racing and sport in this country are clean and free from corruption is critical to its long-term sustainability, and we believe New Zealand can be world-leading in this space. As always, you are welcome to share or forward this newsletter to anyone in the industry who you think might like to read this. They can sign up to receive the Entain Edition directly by contacting communications@entaingroup.co.nz. Likewise, if you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please contact the same address. Thanks for reading. Cameron Rodger, Managing Director – New Zealand Entain Australia and New Zealand   New challenger brand? You betcha Betting in New Zealand has always been a one-horse race. But now that betcha is almost here, betting in New Zealand isn’t what it used to be. betcha – a second NZ-based betting platform and brand – is about to be unleashed. This is the first new betting brand launch since the TAB was established back in 1950. betcha takes a different approach to TAB and the legacy of wagering in New Zealand, and presents a new world of betting that is modern and innovative – the ultimate form of entertainment. It’s a younger, digital-only brand where racing and sports fans go to bet with their mates. betcha is here for the new breed of bettor. Those who bet to scratch their competitive itch and get rich in respect. Who bet to be part of the chat, settle social scores and prove they know better. Bet Social lets customers chat and share bets with friends through My Mates or pool their money together for an epic Pot, while betcha’s ever evolving Toolbox makes it easier to boost odds or protect a bet. We’re sure betcha will appeal to a different, younger type of punter to our TAB die-hards, as well as people completely new to the world of betting. Those punters joining betcha will be playing their part in keeping the the potential investment that flows through to New Zealand sports and racing on shore thanks to this new alternative to TAB. Look out for more about betcha next month.  Future direction unveiled in harness racing The Future Starts Now for harness racing in New Zealand, and Entain Australia and New Zealand is right behind this proud industry with the major changes announced by Harness Racing New Zealand at Addington Raceway earlier this month. An increase of $10 million in total stakes is the headline for the launch for the 2024/25 season, which begins on 1 August. This stakes increase will filter through all levels of racing, with 75% of the funding allocated to everyday racing. Alongside new heats and finals formats and stakes boosts to feature racing, two slot races for 3-year-old pacers and trotters on Show Day are brand-new additions to the calendar. Entain has contributed to the stakes increases alongside HRNZ, the NZ Sires’ Stakes Board and TAB New Zealand. We are also proud to play our part in showcasing harness racing through Trackside’s Friday Night Lights, which officially launched earlier in July. We’re building a brand around Kiwi harness racing’s big night by modernising the coverage with high-end production values alongside a world-class presentation team. Find out more on The Future Starts Now in the news section of HRNZ’s website. Spotlight: Summer thoroughbred racing boost The 2024-25 summer racing period promises to be the biggest and brightest we’ve seen in New Zealand racing. With boosts to feature racing across the summer, through to Champions Day at Ellerslie on 8 March and the key autumn features, there’s never been a better time to be chasing Group, Listed and heritage glory. We’ve summarised the boosts to the Group 1 races below – along with a nod to The NZB Kiwi – and a breakdown of the other feature racing boosts across Group 2, Group 3, Listed, Heritage and Pattern Upgrade races are available here.  Snapshot: best-performing tracks by turnover/starter As the 2023/24 racing season ends, it’s a good time to look at the best-performing thoroughbred racing tracks from a wagering perspective. With Ellerslie coming back online in January, it sits at the top of the turnover per starter standings for Saturday meetings. The presence of Hastings, Trentham, New Plymouth and Te Rapa in the top five is a helpful reminder of the benefit of racing at venues that racing punters know well. This trend carries through to non-Saturday meetings, where a number of familiar tracks also sit in the top 10.  Looking ahead to next season, we are excited about the prospects of 14 double header Sunday thoroughbred meetings and increased allocation of peak wagering days to our best performing venues. Familiarity breeds confidence in racing customers, and with the above focus on these key venues, we expect to see these figures continue to grow.  Product really is king on new TAB platform Last Entain Edition, we used the example of the One NZ Warriors to highlight the quality of the underlying product drives the most significant wagering gains. While our own marketing and customer relationship management improvements have driven increases in customer engagement, it is again an underlying improvement to product that has yielded the most significant boost. A particular area of weakness on the previous platform was our sport Same Game Multi (SGM) product. It lacked intuitive navigation, was clunky, and meant that a product with an already steeper-than-average learning curve was being left on the shelf by many of our customers. As such, our teams focused on improving all aspects of the SGM offering as part of our new platform. The result? Since migration we have seen an 82% year-on-year increase in SGM activity, with over double the number of customers now placing a SGM week to week. This is a huge result, including for our National Sporting Organisation partners who rely on the commission generated on this activity.  News in brief: The hunt is on for the best sprinter in New Zealand next summer and Entain Australia & New Zealand has a huge incentive for the short-course specialist that comes out on top. As part of the brand-new $500,000 Champion Sprint Series, Entain will offer the winner of the series the opportunity to run in the Trackside Media slot in the 2025 running of The Quokka at Ascot Racecourse, Perth in April. Read more in NZTR’s news section. The winners of the first ever Industry Excellence Awards will be announced at a function in Auckland on Sunday. For a list of the finalists, check out the media release from earlier this month, and we’ll look to profile some of the category winners and the overall Entain Excellence Award winner across various outlets in the next few weeks. We share regular updates on LinkedIn around what’s happening in the world of Entain Australia & New Zealand. If you’re on LinkedIn, keep up to date by following us. Entain team profile Name: Simon Godber Role: General Manager – Retail NZ Time with Entain: 14 months  What excites you about the strategic partnership:It is obviously very difficult to pinpoint just one thing. However, a couple of key aspects for me are: Access to deeper talent pools right across the business, enabling us to deliver meaningful changes for our customers at record speed; At a team level, it is extremely exciting to be able to make a deeper investment into the retail network than would have been possible without the strategic partnership, with the intention of genuinely transforming New Zealand into the best physical wagering experience in the world What race, event or opportunity are you most looking forward to in NZ racing in the next 12 months? Without a doubt, the inaugural running of Champions Day in 2025 and The NZB Kiwi. The race card is like no other in New Zealand and will make for an unbelievable day’s racing and raceday experience with some of the best talent (horses and jockeys) across New Zealand and Australia on display.  |
