As the debate over legalized sports betting in Kentucky continues in the wake of a 2018 Supreme Court decision that struck down a federal ban on the practice, one Lexington company is wagering that a sports betting bill will soon pass the Kentucky legislature. While not a bookmaking service in itself, Oracle Betting Solutions, a new Lexington-based online subscription service, aims to offer an edge for gambling consumers to make the most of their wagers.
The website, www.oraclebettingsolutions. com, officially launches in August and is set to provide its subscribers with the information they need to place their bets. Focusing on football and basketball, the site draws information from a number of different sources and offers its subscribers well-considered insights into what the best bet will likely be.
Jim Craig
“We think it’s an emerging industry that’s legal and above board now, and we want to be an information service; that’s really what our company is about,” said Jim Craig, a real estate attorney in Lexington and the company’s spokesperson. “We survey over 1,500 handicapping sources in the U.S. We adjust their opinions based on their past winning results and weight their averages, and then we come up with a consensus expert opinion that we compare to the Las Vegas betting line to see if there might be an advantage to a sports bettor on a particular game.”
Since the site has been in development, its system has seen better results than bets placed with the help of a handicapper, Craig said.
“They say that the typical sports bettor will have a winning percentage of 47 to 48 percent without any handicapping knowledge or advice,” Craig said. “If they use an expert handicapper, most of the expert handicappers have a winning average of 50 to 53 percent. By weighing the expert opinions and by using multiple independent experts, we’ve been able to hit winning percentages as high as 69 percent.”
Craig is one of several Lexington attorneys who created the company. The remaining partners, however, wish to remain anonymous. The company founders feel there’s a market in Kentucky, and across the country as well, for their service.
“Fox News estimated that 47 million people bet on the NCAA basketball tournament, equaling about $8.5 billion,” Craig said. “The No. 1 state for betting in the tournament was Kentucky. The No. 2 state was Kansas. We think there’s tremendous potential to provide this kind of information to sports bettors out there.”
The service, he said, is perfect for the casual sports bettor looking to hedge his or her bets.
“I read an article that Buffalo Wild Wings is thinking about applying for sports betting licenses in states where it’s legal so they can offer sports betting at their restaurants,” he said. “I think [our ideal customer] is the guy at Buffalo Wild Wings. If he’s sitting there and the game is Kentucky versus Toledo and the point spread is 14, how does he know if that’s a good bet or not? If he wants to place a bet, where’s he going to look for information on which side to bet? Does he take Kentucky plus the points or Toledo minus the points? Oracle is for anybody who’s looking for information about a bet they intend to make.”
"Oracle is for anybody who’s looking for information about a bet they intend to make.” — Site co-founder Jim Craig
Craig said the service has helped him up his own winning percentages.
“I’m not a high roller,” he said. “But if I follow Oracle and the color-coded recommendations, over the long term, it’s been profitable. I started the season with $400 in my account and I ended up with $1,200.”
To use the site, subscribers pay a fee based on how long they want access to the information, he said. Subscriptions cost $19 for one week of access, $59 for a month and $349 for a year.
“The way the site is set up, the Vegas line and the expert consensus line are updated every hour until game time,” Craig said. “We call the experts Friday before Saturday’s game. The spreadsheet updates automatically [based on information from Las Vegas sportsbooks]. Let’s say the quarterback gets suspended Friday before Saturday’s game, then the Vegas line is going to change immediately, and our spreadsheet is going to update immediately.”
According to an FAQ page on its website, Oracle doesn’t highlight individual games, however it does emphasize a selected group of games via a color-coded system that indicates the highest probability of success. Oracle provides a point spread and over/under prediction for all of its listed games, and publishes the winning percentage of all of its color-coded bets.
Oracle's performance graph, based on survey predictions during the site's one year of research and development.
While legislation is pending in Frankfort, Craig said he doesn’t see any legislation impacting Oracle’s business since it’s an information service site and not a bookmaking site (meaning Oracle doesn’t take or broker any bets). For now, he said, the company will focus on acquiring subscribers in the Kentucky market and see what the response is.
“Our official launch date is Aug. 1,” he said. “The first spreadsheet goes out for the college football games in mid-August. We’ve signed promotional agreements with local companies … and we’re all Kentucky oriented because we’re a Kentucky firm. The plan is, if we get a response based on our Kentucky advertising that is positive then we can ramp up to add adjoining states and grow from our beginnings here.”
Regardless, Craig said, he doesn’t see the company expanding its focus outside of college and professional football and college and professional basketball.
Ultimately, he said he sees a future for legalized betting in Kentucky that would move betting to an app on a smart phone. Developments like that could help sports bettors quietly, and privately, check Oracle Betting Solutions for information, and then place bets on games, all from the comfort of their living room chairs.
And that kind of development could mean big money for Kentucky, he said.
“Oxford University did a study on legalized betting,” he said. “They found that it could add $22.4 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product and create a lot of jobs.”
If their hunch is right, the money is on Oracle to succeed.