[1] Churchill Downs Incorporated [3], the parent company of Churchill Downs Racetrack, has launched a new online gaming site called Luckity. According to its website [4], Luckity is like slots or the lottery, but a game you can play at home; it’s legal in the United States and licensed by the Oregon Racing Commission; and includes numbers games, draw games, jackpot games, quick picks, and more. The Luckity advertising video shows a woman pouring a tall glass of wine and settling in on the couch with her cat and her laptop, just before money begins to spew from the disc drive.
According to an article by Gregory A. Hall published on the Courier-Journal [5] website, Ted Gay, president of Churchill Downs Interactive, said the target demographic of Luckity is women over 35 who enjoy slots, the lottery and social networking games, and that the Luckity target customer is more likely to attend night racing and bet casually on their favorite names or jockeys.
The games take advantage of a federal law that allows interstate wagering on horse racing. Game plays on Luckity.com are placed into wagering pools on one or more live horse races occurring all over the world. The specific wagering pool and race information, including track, race number, horse names, and current odds can be found in the “How to Win” and “Race Info” tabs located within the “Game Details” on each game. The results of game plays, including the cash prizes, are determined by the actual race results.
Players must register for an online account and fund it with real money before play can begin. For horse racing fans familiar with online account wagering through Twinspires.com, TVG, ExpressBet, or any of the other online wagering systems, funding the Luckity account is much the same, making use of credit cards and services like Green Dot MoneyPak.
Although the website allows 24-hour play, there will be times when play is not possible because there is no live racing occurring at the time. In those times (and any time), the site offers free bingo where players can win “clovers” to enter into a weekly drawing for $250.
From my own review of the site, the games look similar to the instant racing games I played at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Ky. There is a lot of animated characters and color, and you can start playing before you really have any idea of what you’re doing. Unless you dig deep to find the race info, you wouldn’t even realize that you’re actually betting on live horse races. Since you are, games do not move at the two-second pace of the recorded instant racing games, but the slower intervals found in live racing.
After taking a few seconds to pick “fortunes” in a sample game, luck must have been on my side because I won $10 that would have been credited to my account, had I opened one. Was I really lucky or was Luckity trying to draw me in with its $10 signup bonus?
I can see how someone could spend hours playing around on the site. I doubt, however, that hardcore handicappers or race fans that enjoy the mind puzzle of disseminating the winner from a race will find as much pleasure in Luckity.
Photo: Luckity.com