Tote joins race for faster odds

Bookmaker to overhaul systems and adopt SOA to boost services

The Tote jumps out of the gates with new IT systems

Government-owned bookmaker The Tote is planning a radical overhaul of its IT systems to compete with privately-owned rivals such as William Hill.

The organisation has already revamped its web site infrastructure and retail data warehouse, and is in the process of upgrading tills and adopting a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

‘Our strategy of using only in-house systems was not working and the IT gap with competitors was widening,’ said The Tote IT director Bob Broadbridge.

‘Reliability was going south and it was time to re-invent some of the systems.’

The Tote expects to have new electronic tills in place by October. It is also installing Coda financial systems and has already implemented Orbis OpenBet software to provide a single view of online betting data.

‘This allows us to see how people are betting and respond quickly to trends to generate odds,’ said Broadbridge.

The largest project will be the adoption of SOA, now that it has rolled out Sonic integration tools from Progress Software, which have reduced the time it takes to inform punters of the odds from two minutes to 12 seconds.

The Tote’s racecourse, shop and online betting channels have historically developed their own systems for the same tasks of taking and settling bets. SOA will allow it to connect legacy systems faster and more reliably.

The Racecourse Association, trade body and part of a consortium looking to buy The Tote, says it welcomes any innovation that will improve service levels.

‘There have been instances where the system was not robust enough and collapsed,’ said its race services executive Caroline Davies. ‘The Tote needs to constantly improve systems to keep up with other bookmakers.’

Freeform Dynamics research director Dale Vile said: ‘It is great to see a publicly funded organisation embracing SOA. Private companies are often comfortable with a short-term cost for long-term gain, but that is not always the case at public firms.’