GMA Network, Manila Jockey Club in joint venture for online betting

Manila Standard Today

February 8, 2011

Broadcast giant GMA Network, Inc.’s media solution unit said yesterday it had selected a partnership with Manila Jockey Club Inc. to allow betting on horse races through mobile phones and the Internet.

Judd I. Gallares, GMA New Media Inc. president and chief operating officer, said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange the company would provide the technology for the new joint venture.

“GMA Networks subsidiary and Asia’s oldest horse-racing club will invest P10 million each into the new venture.” Mr. Gallares said.

“People can begin betting via platforms starting the middle of the year,” he added Alfonso Victorio G. Reyno III, Manila Jockey’s executive vie president and chief operating officer, said in the same statement the company entered into the joint venture to “upgrade the leisure it provides to people”

Alfonso Reyno Jr., Manila Jockey Club chairman and president, said the partership will expand the company’s market and boost the horse-betting industry.

The joint venture will be a private domestic corporation, engaged in the businesses of promoting technology and related services for sports and recreations with television, radio, mobile, web and other platforms.

Manila Jockey Club, incorporated in 1937, operates 77-hectares horse racing facility in Carmona Cavite as well as a network of off-track betting stations in Metro Manila and provincial areas.

The club which started horse races in 1867 under Spanish colonial rule, moved to Cavite from the San Lazaro hippodrome in 2003.

Shares in GMA Network and Manila Jockey Club stayed at P6.94 and P4.00 apiece yesterday.

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