Happy Hooves

About Happy Hooves

In March, William Hill told staff it plans to permanently close approximately 200 of its retail shops in the UK, around 15% of Evoke’s retail estate.

Last month, meanwhile, Betfred announced plans to shutter 132 of its UK betting shops, reducing its workforce by over 600 employees.

Betfred CEO Jo Whittaker said: “We have tried hard to protect all our sites and the colleagues who work in them, but the combined impact of higher employer National Insurance contributions, wage inflation, increases in gambling taxes and wider economic uncertainty has left us with no choice.”

How to play Happy Hooves

The blurring line between financial investing and gambling has been accelerated by the rise of prediction markets—exchanges offering event contracts that are federally regulated as financial derivatives. U.S. News found that over 40% of active sports bettors now also participate in sports prediction markets.

Financial advisors continue to urge consumers to view sports wagering strictly as entertainment and to only risk funds they can afford to lose.

Research from Stanford University published in April concluded that sports bettors remain “overoptimistic,” generally expecting to break even despite losing an average of 7.5 cents on every dollar wagered.

What is Happy Hooves?

“If we just sold the data to Kalshi in order to list the markets but no one was coming in and placing liquidity, there’s no point in them listing the markets,” Monk said. “We also need to supply the data to the market makers to inform their models.”

Catalist initially received a list of fewer than 10 potential market makers from Kalshi. It has since completed agreements with close to 20 and is engaging with approximately another 20.

That growth reflects the expanding number and variety of sports contracts. ITF tennis is particularly dependent on official data because its more than 60,000 annual matches are not generally televised. Unofficially monitoring a tour moving between locations such as Bogotá and Bali would be difficult, Monk noted.