Blockchain Technology Could Be Horse Racing’s Future

The one technology that could be effective in solving a range of issues in racing, such as over production or issues related to reliability and could make it fun for future race enthusiasts is blockchain technology. If we take up the example of over production of horses, it has been noted that most breeders do not have the necessary finances and resources that is required to breed good thoroughbreds. With this technology even small breeders can be goaded financially to solve over productions problems and to provide the market with the best quality thoroughbreds.

Blockchain is the technology that keeps digital records up to date in a database without any centralization. The ledger will be able to tell if a horse has been fed steroids, whether a person can pay for the horse, etc. The performance of every horse will be fed into the blockchain and every member of the network will have access to it.

Benefits of blockchain

When the full details of a horse such as the breed, the races that the horse has taken part, the number of times it has won, the number of time it has lost narrowly, the way people have been betting on the horse, whether the odds have been high while the horse won or whether it has been low and much more information can be found. This information is huge, and bookies can set odds based on it and punters can also look at the information and decide whether to bet on the horse or not.

In short, the engagement with race enthusiasts can be really improved with blockchain. In fact a cryptocurrency specifically for racing can also be created or one can integrate the many cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum etc.

Cases are here already

Racing would not be the first to start their own cryptocurrency, London Football Exchange has already come up with its own currency and the major football clubs of the world have teamed up with this Exchange already. The consumers who buy and use this currency get preferential match tickets, they get quality and new merchandise and become a part of an exclusive VIP club that comes with its own experiences.

Kazakhstan Horse Racing Association has embraced blockchain and created a new cryptocurrency called Pegasus Coin. They have built an open source blockchain ledger that all racing enthusiasts can access and get information they require and the currency that is used for all transaction is this one.

There are other racing companies that have already embraced or have started embracing blockchain technology. A recent article on Medium.com states that,

“RacingLand is a horse racing business based on the blockchain, which committed to creating the world’s first most transparent and open platform. There are multiple services provided on the platform that would create a horse racing ecosystem, including Horse Racing Media, Racing Ownership, Horse Exchange and Racing Game.”

There are however some difficulties as regards this technology and mainly it is due to the number of transactions that can be processed. Right now blockchain can only process 7 transactions in a second which is very small when it is compared to Visa — because every second Visa processes 1667 transactions. Another reason why many people are still looking at this technology and not embracing it is due to the volatility that is seen when it comes to cryptocurrencies. As it is known in Bitcoin News, the rates keep going up and down and this is still a problem for a mass adoption.