Greyhound racing fans, enthusiasts and punters - and even those with just a passing interest in the sport - will be among the first to take advantage of a new, innovative racing product known as Swopstakes, which was launched yesterday.
Swopstakes has been labelled the World’s Greatest Sweepstake (and is also available on sports and racing), sees players - regardless of their knowledge of the greyhounds or the races they are contesting - able to purchase tickets around a greyhound meeting each evening, six nights a week.
The big lure for greyhound fans will be the promotion around the World Famous Dapto Dogs on Thursday nights, where the winner can pocket up to $1 million.
Swopstakes offers players the opportunity to win large cash prizes for a small investment, the likes of which are not typically available to racing punters. Importantly, players can have an interest on the greyhound races for a small amount, and be entertained across a number of hours, the duration of an entire race meeting.
The new product will see players not only chasing the big prize, but also be able to have in-game options to “cash-out” tickets they don’t like, buy more tickets with selections they do like, & even ‘Swop’ their tickets for a new set of tickets.
Major prizes on greyhound meetings will range from $5,000 to $1 million.
“So at Dapto on Thursday night, there are 10 or 11 races, we create a game where if you buy a ticket you get a selection in every race, and the way you win, is you get the correct selection in all races,” Swopstakes Australia Chief Operating Officer Craig Driver said. “Because we create unique combinations of tickets, no two tickets are the same, so there is always only one winning ticket available for sale.
“Once you go in and buy your tickets, that winning ticket is in there available for sale, but it may not get bought, and if that happens, we either pay a consolation or Jackpot, depending on the game. In a Jackpot game we would pay a consolation dividend to the people who get the furthest with winners, but 80 per cent of the prize pool gets Jackpotted, so the next week we start with a pre-funded pool and that’s where we are hoping the big Dapto game gets up to around $1 million.
“We will guarantee that we will pay a dividend even if we only sell 5,000 tickets, and we guarantee with the Dapto game that if you have the winning ticket you’ll win at least $25,000. As it Jackpots we will be able to create a game where we have 100,000s of tickets in the draw and there will be a big prize go off.”
While there are over 1 billion potential combinations in 10, eight dog fields, there won’t be a billion tickets for sale.
“Obviously that is a very big number of tickets and we are not going to sell that many tickets, so the way we control the number of tickets is by bracketing. There might be an even money favourite in the first race so it would be Bracket 1, and bracket 2 has the rest of the field. In all of our games we’re trying to create two brackets early on to keep people in the game a bit longer.”
Driver also explained the cash out process.
“I guess one of the key points is that it’s not just the major prize money winner who can profit,” he said. “What you are able to do at any stage of the game other than when the race is running, is cash out. You can also buy back in between races.
“So before Race 1 tickets are a $1. After Race 1, we’ve knocked out half the tickets so tickets may now be $2. If you get a little way in and you are still alive, you may be able to cash out for a profit if you think your remaining selections are not great.
“You can also buy $20 at the start. and if you don’t like them, ‘Swop’ then back in for another 20 tickets for a small fee.”
Swopstakes have been operating in a free-to-play format for over 18 months, and Driver said they have had significant feedback from their players particularly on how engaging the product is, and how it is unlike anything else in the market.
“People love having an interest, and they can spend a small amount for an entire evening’s entertainment,” he said. “The free-to-play games have been running for about 18 months and we have found that they have attracted about 40% female players and about 40% under 35.”
