Victoria Racing Club, Tabcorp and the Hong Kong Jockey Club are excited to announce that Black Caviar Lightning Race Day at Flemington will feature the first World Pool on an Australian thoroughbred meeting.

The World Pool will see SuperTAB combine with the Hong Kong tote pools for all races on the February 18 Group 1 feature meeting. The World Pool will likely become the largest pool on Australian shores, providing punters with greater pricing stability and access to larger payouts through exotic bets.

The World Pool amplifies Black Caviar Lightning Race Day further onto the global stage. The best sprint race in the world is now part of the World Pool at the same time as world racing converges on Flemington for the Asian Racing Conference.

It’s a fantastic outcome for Australian racing and most importantly punters who will have the option of placing bets into super-sized pools. A world pool creates additional options for punters and gives racing at Flemington additional global exposure.

Here's how it works: 

Let’s take a look at Nature Strip’s win in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2022. His dominant win was reflected in the wagering by Australians on the champion sprinter, with the World Pool on the Ascot meeting delivering a return for punters they would not normally have received for a Nature Strip masterclass.

Nature Strip accounted for some 60% of the S-TAB Win pool which would usually mean a payout of around $1.50 with that size of Win tote investment.

However, due to the huge international liquidity created by the World Pool, the return to punters normalises. Nature Strip paid $3.25 on S-TAB and the World Pool, matching the fixed odds payout of $3.20 and international bookmakers paying between $3.30 and $3.25.

The liquidity created by the global pool provides greater odds certainty and better value. Customers get a better return thanks to the size of the World Pool as it combines betting from several different countries.