Case study: What Stakemate’s launch reveals about the value of racing for sportsbooks

When new sportsbooks launch in mature betting markets, product priorities often follow a familiar pattern. Football markets are built first, casino products follow, and racing is sometimes considered later as a specialist addition.

The experience of Stakemate, a modern social betting platform launched in the UK, suggests that approach may be worth reconsidering.

In preparation for launch, Stakemate ran a global tender process to identify a partner capable of delivering a complete racing vertical. The objective was not simply to add racing markets, but to introduce a fully functioning racing product that could sit naturally within a modern sportsbook experience.

Racing and Sports was selected to deliver that solution, providing the infrastructure required to launch racing successfully. This included official licensing support, pre-race data, race-day data, and a fully managed trading service delivered through a single integration.

For operators unfamiliar with racing, this complexity is often the biggest barrier. A successful racing product requires several layers working together: licensing agreements with racing rights holders, high-quality racecards and pre-race content, accurate race-day data, and experienced trading teams capable of managing pricing and risk in real time.

In Stakemate’s case, bringing those elements together allowed the platform to launch with a racing product designed specifically for the UK market.

The results have been notable.

Since launch, Stakemate has become one of the fastest growing new sportsbooks in the UK market. Racing has played a central role in that growth, with turnover and gross gaming revenue surpassing the operator’s initial expectations.

The reasons are largely structural.

Unlike most sportsbook products, racing provides a continuous stream of short-form events. More than a thousand races take place globally each day, creating regular betting opportunities throughout the day and evening. For operators, this translates into consistent engagement between major sporting fixtures and a steady contribution to overall sportsbook turnover.

The Stakemate example also highlights an important point for emerging sportsbook markets. Racing is often perceived as a complex product requiring specialist knowledge and operational infrastructure.

In practice, the challenge is not the product itself but the process of assembling the right components.

Racing and Sports works with operators globally to bring these components together through a single integrated approach. By combining licensing support, official data, racecards, editorial content and managed trading services, sportsbooks can introduce a complete racing vertical without needing to build internal expertise from scratch.

For operators exploring new revenue streams, the lesson from the Stakemate launch is straightforward. Racing is not simply another betting market — when structured correctly, it becomes a continuous betting layer within the sportsbook that can drive engagement and revenue throughout the day.

To learn more about how your sportsbook could introduce a racing vertical capable of delivering around 15% GGR month on month, reach out to Commercial Director Jack Kelliher at [email protected].