Easy come, Easygo – Frankie Dettori, the Melbourne Cup, a $500,000 bet and not a Stake to be seen

It is the bet that shook up the Melbourne Cup market.

Laid by a tech company with a desire to “get around the biggest thing in Melbourne” and advised by arguably the most famous global jockey of this century, who had never been able to win a Melbourne Cup himself.

Frankie Dettori announced his pending retirement – again – ahead of last week’s Breeders’ Cup, and apart from a last set of engagements in South America, his time in the saddle is done.

But Dettori’s time as a brand ambassador is just beginning. Six months ago, he signed a deal to promote global crypto casino Stake. Exclusive content from Dettori features across Stake’s platform, which, for regulatory reasons, is not available in Australia, and can not be offered to Australian customers.

Stake has its operational centre in Melbourne, at the location of parent company Easygo in Collins St, just across the Yarra River from where Monday’s Melbourne Cup Call of the Card was taking place.

Rumours had been swirling for days that Dettori was set to fly into Melbourne after his Breeders’ Cup engagement to spearhead a massive Melbourne Cup plunge.

It wasn’t to be on behalf of Stake, but for Easygo, because an unregulated gambling operation would not be able to utilise an occasion such as the Call of the Card to garner publicity under Victorian law. It’s the same law that prevents Stake’s logo from appearing on its sponsored F1 cars when the race is held at nearby Albert Park. Instead, the Kick streaming brand is used.

The Dettori coup did not eventuate; the dash from Del Mar to Melbourne proved beyond even the resources of Easygo’s billionaire owner Ed Craven.

The execution was instead left to Chris Boddie, Easygo’s director of poker and sportsbook, a somewhat less recognisable figure who held the paddle aloft on a $500,000 bet on leading Melbourne Cup hope Al Riffa at $8.

The bet was accepted by bookmaker Chris Lester, who carries the liability for a $3.5 million payout should the topweight prevail. Lester later admitted he would look to lay off some of that elsewhere.    

“So the bet was done by Easygo. We’re a tech company born here in Melbourne and we really wanted to get around the biggest thing in the world that surrounds Melbourne outside of the Aussie Open, which is the Melbourne Cup,” Boddie said. 

“We came here with the idea of putting the biggest bet on ever. There was a little bit of back and forth with the Victorian Bookmakers Association because the bet that we might have wanted to put on might have hit some tax thresholds.”

The intention was to win $6 million, but that was scaled back to $4 million.

It was Dettori who provided Boddie and the Easygo team with the advice to bet on Al Riffa, the overseas runner trained by Joseph O’Brien-trained but owned by syndicator Australian Bloodstock.  

“We had the horse marked at $6 last week, and that had come from our great friend, and the greatest of all time, Frankie Dettori, who we work closely with,” Boddie said.

“When the rain has come, he said ‘don’t be put off by that, keep going’.

“The idea was actually to have Frankie here. You know, he’s been desperate all his life to win this race. He’s never won it. So now he’s going to try and back the winner.”

Even aside from the optics of a yet-to-retire jockey orchestrating a massive plunge, it seemed a slightly strange arrangement.

It was clear that the Stake brand was to be in no way associated with the betting plunge, with Boddie refusing to even utter the company’s name when asked.

Boddie said the highly publicised bet was a good way of getting the Easygo’s brand out there to the broader racing industry as well as to prospective recruits.

“There is a crossover of maybe someone who sees this on the likes of LinkedIn will spot it and realise there is a gambling element to it. If you’re bored of doing corporate engineering, we are a pretty exciting place to work,” he said.

“You get to take part in stuff like this. The company is not risk-averse either. It’s a fun place to work.”

What it also tells us is that the Victorian racing industry is reaching out to Craven and his team, which now numbers 800 at Easygo’s local headquarters. Boddie described the company as “a bit of a sleeping giant”.

He revealed members of Easygo will be trackside on Cup day in the exclusive The Byerley, in the VRC Club Stand, courtesy of the Victoria Racing Club.

The Straight understands that Easygo’s involvement in the Call of the Card was contingent on there being no association with Stake. Boddie stuck to the promise when asked about the connection.

“We’re building out a small empire here in Australia under the Easygo brand. And it’s all about Easygo. Although I know we’re associated with that brand, this is all about Easygo.”

Dettori, being out of the country, was not subject to such restrictions. Less than an hour after the bet was placed by Easygo on his advice, he was on social media, pumping up Stake, offering boosted odds about Al Riffa (not to Australian customers, of course).

“Once again, I’m stopping the nation,” he posted.

The irony of that is Dettori never did ‘stop the nation’. He tried 17 times, finished second twice, and on another occasion lost second on a protest. Chris Lester will be hoping that his Cup tipping follows a similar path.