Lottery bets on virtual horse races

The Massachusetts State Lottery is expanding into horse racing, offering gamblers the chance to bet on an animated 12-horse race run on Keno-style video monitors.

The lottery's executive director, Joseph Sullivan, said he hoped to launch the horse-racing game in November or December and expects it to bring in about $150 million over the course of its first full year.

''This game is going to be an exciting game and be received well in the marketplace," Sullivan said. ''It's not Keno Plus. It's a new game."

Details of the Daily Race Game launch are still being worked out, but Sullivan said the lottery intends to install video monitors in bars and restaurants that would be dedicated exclusively to the new horse-racing game. Sullivan said it's possible a car-racing game could be added in the future.

The lottery currently has Keno video monitors in 1,700 locations. Sullivan said the horse-racing game would be available in a smaller number of establishments, primarily bars and restaurants, but he said many venues would offer customers the option of playing both the Keno and horse-racing games.

A new Keno game plays every four minutes currently, and it's expected that the horse-racing game will operate on a similar timetable.

The horse-racing game would feature 12 numbered horses that would race around an oval with an announcer calling the race, although the sound could be turned off. Players presumably would bet much like they do at a racetrack, picking horses to win, place, and show as well as other combinations.

Sullivan said the minimum bet hasn't been set yet, but would probably be $1 or $2.

The new game is part of a broader effort at the lottery to keep revenues growing. In fiscal 2004, which ended June 30, the lottery generated $4.38 billion in revenues and returned more than $700 million of it to cities and towns in the form of local aid.

Through the first half of fiscal 2005, sales hit $2.2 billion, up 5.9 percent over the same period a year ago. Despite the overall revenue increase, Sullivan said Keno sales have dropped about 4 percent so far this fiscal year. In fiscal 2004, Keno sales hit a peak of $775 million, up 10 percent from the year before. Keno was launched in 1993.

Sullivan blamed the decline in Keno revenues on the statewide smoking ban in all restaurants and bars, which took effect last July. Sullivan's assessment conflicts with a study just issued by the Harvard School of Public Health, which found that sales and employment at Massachusetts restaurants and bars grew slightly after the imposition of the smoking ban.

The lottery expects the new horse-racing game to give the state's Keno revenue category a big shot in the arm.

''People who enjoy Keno will enjoy this game, but we think it will add to the player pool," Sullivan said.

The lottery is paying $3.5 million over the next three years to Scientific Games Corp. of New York to provide the software for the horse-racing game. Company officials said Massachusetts is the first state to purchase such a game, although the Rhode Island lottery bought software for a car-racing game called Hot Trax from rival GTech Corp.

Lisa D. Lettieri, a spokeswoman for Scientific Games, said online games like Keno have grown much more slowly than those of scratch tickets and the new horse-racing game and others like it are expected to help close the gap.

''It's giving the customer a little diversity," Lettieri said. ''Keno is picking numbers and this is picking horses. It's a different style of animation. It's like offering different kinds of scratch tickets."

Game makers say Keno-style games that are broadcast over video monitors at retail establishments could also be broadcast to wireless phones, but Sullivan said that's not in the works at the Massachusetts lottery.

''At the moment, our focus is on establishing a second monitor game," Sullivan said.

Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.