Did the founder of an Official Gaming Partner of the Kentucky Derby just fix the archaic tote problem in horse racing?
It sure as hell seems so.
When Ian Cummings, CEO of Third Time Games and creator of Photo Finish™ LIVE, stepped to the podium, he wasn’t there to offer theoretical reform that could combat CAWs..he introduced OpenTote, a fully transparent, real-time wagering protocol built for his own game — and, unintentionally, one of the clearest answers racing has ever seen to the CAW problem.
He even admitted, “This wasn’t a business strategy. It wasn’t some plan to topple a multi-billion-dollar industry. It was just the foundation our game needed to be responsive and credible.”
And yet, the technology he showed may solve issues the sport has been wrestling with for a decade.
“New fans love racing. They just don’t love the systems around it.”
Cummings began his talk by grounding everything in a simple truth:
“Young fans do love the competition and the adrenaline of racing,” he said. “What they don’t love is the systems around the real sport.”
He illustrated that point with side-by-side visuals: a high-energy ESPN college football highlight reel next to a single-camera horse race shot with 1990s graphics.
“These aren’t minor inconveniences,” he told the crowd. “They’re friction points.”
The takeaway was blunt: modern fans expect data, design, speed, and clarity — and racing isn’t delivering it.
A Video Game Studio Steps In Where the Tote System Can’t
As Photo Finish™ LIVE moved into real-money racing, Cummings hit the same wall that traditional bettors have hit for years.
“The lack of transparency on the tote, the lack of ability for people to see odds updates in real time — we saw the exact same problems you’re seeing,” he said.
So he didn’t wait for the industry to fix it.
He built his own solution.
OpenTote in his own words:
- “Our system processes 50,000 transactions per second.”
- “Odds update in 40 milliseconds instead of 30 seconds.”
- “All betting volume is publicly shown on the blockchain.”
- “You can literally see when a CAW has landed.”
For an industry fighting to understand and manage CAW activity, those last eight words hit the room like a bolt.
“You would know a CAW has landed.”
Cummings demonstrated how OpenTote displays real-time sparkline charts showing money as it enters the pools. There’s no mystery, no hidden blasts of late money — everything is visible.
With OpenTote, he said, “You’d be able to see that. You’d know it immediately.”
Compare that to the current pari-mutuel environment, where bettors often watch a 5-1 drop to 9-5 after the gates open and are told to simply “trust the system.”
The contrast was impossible to miss.
Photo Finish™ LIVE: Proof Young Fans Will Show Up — If the Tech Works
Part of what made Cummings’ pitch hit harder is that Photo Finish™ LIVE is not hypothetical. It’s a functioning ecosystem with real money flowing through it.
Since 2023, the game has:
- Processed over $55 million in races
- Seen $45 million in digital horse sales
- Surpassed $100 million in total real-money activity
- Attracted players from Asia, Europe, and North America — many brand new to racing
Cummings shared one anecdote with a laugh:
“We had a big meetup at the Derby. A bunch of players flew in from Singapore. They’d spent six figures on digital horses… and then asked me how to place a bet. They didn’t know what an exacta was.”
The point wasn’t humor — it was possibility.
Games can teach. Games can onboard. Games can build fans racing never knew existed.
And OpenTote, built to support that audience, may be exactly the technology racing needs for its own future.
“I genuinely believe the future racing fan is created in digital environments first.”
Cummings closed his presentation with a line that hung in the air:
“The future fan of horse racing is created in digital environments first.”
It’s not a pitch. It’s an observation based on millions of players and a decade building sports games.
“You provide a modern experience, and the curiosity becomes understanding. The understanding becomes fandom. The fandom becomes participation.”
So… Did a Video Game Just Fix CAW?
OpenTote isn’t a silver bullet. It won’t eliminate CAWs, nor does Cummings claim it will.
But it does something no U.S. racetrack currently does:
- Shows exactly when money enters the pool
- Shows who (or what type of bettor) is likely behind it
- Updates odds instantly, not on delay
- Makes the entire system transparent, not opaque
If racing wants to restore trust, level the playing field, and modernize without reinventing the sport, the blueprint might already be here — created not by a regulator or legacy operator, but by a video game studio that needed a better solution and simply built it.
The question racing now faces is simple:
Will the sport adopt the technology that a game developer proved is not only possible — but already working?
Leave a Reply