SOUTH African horse-racing and tote betting company Phumelela has reached another milestone in its march to modernise the tote betting world by teaming up with trail-blazing tote integrator i-neda to offer previously unavailable domestic bets to their international clientele.

SOUTH African horse-racing and tote betting company Phumelela has reached another milestone in its march to modernise the tote betting world by teaming up with trail-blazing tote integrator i-neda to offer previously unavailable domestic bets to their international clientele.

The new systems will offer connectivity from Phumelela Gold Enterprise's (PGE) tote hub on the Isle of Man to any tote integrated to i-neda's Opentote system, including the UK Tote's multi-leg bets.

Phumelela group chief executive Rian du Plessis said: "One of the major barriers to the growth of international tote betting over the last few years has been the inability of a system in one country to talk fully to one in another part of the world.

"We are therefore delighted to have found a company in i-neda, which shares our vision of fully commingled international betting."

The existing method of connecting can have limitations and up to now PGE was only able to offer single-leg bets into the UK Tote such as Win, Place, Swinger, Exacta and Trifecta. With the new development PGE can now offer multi-leg bets to its international customers as well.

The first beneficiary of the new system is Equiniela, the Andalucían tote operator that trades as Win Sports Bars.

Equiniela has been passing bets on UK, Irish, Swedish and South African racing back to domestic totes for a number of years.

Bets pass through a PC-based system, managed by PGE. As part of this development, technically they will now have access to all pools in the UK, Ireland and Sweden.

This PC terminal is already used in Brazil and Andalucía, but PGE is confident that there will be further interest from many of its UK-racing customers.

Equiniela director Ray Sharman said: "We have been connected for basic bets for some time, but this new solution now gives our customers the chance to bet into the UK Tote's most popular exotic pools, like Placepots and Jackpots. "

Du Plessis added: "We invested in i-neda's Open Tote service to substantially expand our ability to commingle multi-leg pools. This is important for all our international customers and should benefit our partnership with UK racing."

i-neda MD Ben Pinnick said: "Opentote is a universal tote connectivity service. Phumelela invested in our solution to ensure tote connectivity was faster, easier and cheaper for their clients. We are very happy that in such a short time we have made a real difference and that the UK Tote and UK racing will see the benefit in their growing pools."

RMG chief executive Richard FitzGerald endorsed the investment, saying: "International pool contributions are very important to the future of UK racing and offer increased value for UK-based punters. Betting patterns and opinions vary around the world and increased commingling will bring increased pool liquidity and better dividends."