The Big Interview: Rewards4racing

Josh Apiafi, Rewards4Racing, founder and director speaks on The Jockey Club’s retail bond, which was used to finance the development, consisted of a 4.75% return in cash and a 3% return in Rewards4Racing points. 

Tell us about Rewards4Racing and how it came about?

‘We Get Racegoers Going’ is the Rewards4Racing strapline and in one guise or another I’ve spent most of my professional life encouraging others into horseracing. Rewards4Racing is the latest outcome of this lifelong goal. It’s long been understood that racing has a churn problem and Rewards4Racing is successfully addressing this issue. In the past, the racegoer walked up to the racecourse, bought a ticket, had a good time, and headed home.  This meant that the sport struggled to engage and communicate with their customers as they didn’t really know who they were, what their interests were or what their engagement level in the sport was. We felt that by rewarding racegoers for their passion, there was a way to address this issue.  

Rewards4Racing has a very simple mechanic, our members earn reward points purchasing race tickets and hospitality with our 32 racecourse partners, through their everyday spend with our 4,000+ retail partners and by placing their bets with our 3 bookmaker partners.  They then spend their points in full or part payment on their next raceday experience with one our racecourse partners.

Every minute of every day we’re building a more accurate picture and segmentation of the race-going audience thus helping the sport become more relevant to their customers. Racecourses’ attendees cover a wide demographic, on the one hand you might have somebody coming on a stag or hen party and who has never been to the races before, and on the other you might have a diehard fan who goes racing 20 times a year, and is a Racing UK and Racing Post subscriber. Each customer segment is in a position to increase its engagement with the sport but they need to be incentivised and spoken to with a different voice. That insight is what Rewards4Racing is bringing to the industry.

What have been the big milestones in the business from its start six years ago?

I think initially having The Jockey Club’s backing was an enormous step for us. Launching Rewards4Racing would have been a far more difficult proposition without them. Jockey Club Racecourses’ managing director, Paul Fisher, saw that our proposal sat very well with their data-led marketing vision. He has been an enormous support to the business as a partner and a board member. Once we were up and running the major milestones have been reaching 1 million members; being a significant part of The Racecourse Retail Bond, which raised £24.9m towards the new grandstand and redevelopment of Cheltenham Racecourse (bondholders receive cash interest and Rewards4Racing points on their investment); and hitting the £1bn turnover mark with our bookmaker partners in 2016

Beyond this we were enormously proud of the launch of the ‘You Spend, We Give’ campaign this year which supports the racing charity Racing Welfare. Every time one of our members earns Rewards4Racing points with a retailer, we make a donation to Racing Welfare.  It was always our intention to give back to the sport when we began this business, we’re delighted to now be in a position to do so. 

You recently announced that Arena Racing Company (ARC) will join the programme from this Autumn, what will its arrival do for the business?

Immediately it will double the number of racecourses on the programme from 16 to 32, and take the number of meetings at which Rewards4Racing points can be used from 360 to over 900. It takes our offer nationwide and will bring some iconic race meetings to our members such as the St Leger Festival, the Newcastle Town Plate, the Coral Welsh National and the All Weather Championships.

George Baker on board Harbour Law (1) wins The Ladbrokes St Leger Stakes at Doncaster Racecourse

At launch we were very much The Jockey Club’s rewards programme. But their mantra is always to do what is best for the whole industry rather than just their own business as they are governed by the Royal Charter. This enabled us to successfully approach and partner with York Racecourse in 2015. ARC’s arrival later in the year really does establish us as the racing industry’s currency and rewards programme.

What are your thoughts on the current racing industry and what has the business’s impact on it been?

Racing has undergone an amazing change over the last few years. The industry now understands that by working together the sport becomes stronger and can be well positioned for growth. The new levy system is a great example of this where a collaborative approach has meant that racing has been able to address the off-shore betting revenue leakage. This simply wouldn’t have happened in the past because we weren’t working together. Closer to home, five years ago it would have been hard to imagine that ARC and The Jockey Club would have both been part of the rewards programme – and look at us now!  Not only has working together helped the industry enormously, racing has become far more data and customer focused. We are seeing proof of this through attendances where numbers reached almost six million last year. 

The betting market is a competitive place, what does Rewards4Racing bring to bookmakers?

The figures last year from our three bookmaker partners were ground breaking for both us as a business and also within the betting and racing industries. 58,400 accounts were opened by our members with one of our three bookmaker partners – bet365, Betfred and Coral. The new accounts show how powerful non-cash incentives can be for betting operators. The Mintel Group conducted an independent report last year which established that 81% of current online gamblers expressed interest in a non-cash incentive rather than a free bet or cash back.

Racegoers place bets at the Cheltenham Festival

Our use of data makes sure both we and the bookmaker are relevant to the consumer. We know when people are going racing and consequently when they’re going to bet. Overall in 2016 our members staked £1.24bn with our bookmaker partners and purchased 102,000 tickets using points they’d collected through their betting activity. It shows how successful the programme is in driving loyalty to the bookmaker.  Later this year, we will look to extend our offering by adding a fourth and final bookmaker partner.

Where do you see the future of the business?

Our aim is to expand the business with an offering for all racecourses both large and small. By the end of the year we’ll have a forth bookmaker on board and we are in talks on an international front to roll out the programme into other jurisdictions overseas.

Through the Rewards4Racing programme, I believe we’ve created a fantastic engagement tool to both reward and engage with fans. Other sports are now cottoning on to the fact.  So I can see organisations and clubs in football, rugby and cricket being hugely successful in using the platform to connect with their fans as well as offering a fantastic value added benefit for supporting their club.