In a first for SA racing, the professionals have taken up the challenge as Day 3 of The Championships at Turffontein on Saturday launched the opening leg of the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge Racing Stars competition.
The new fun competition hosted within the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge platform for South Africa’s racing presenters, personalities, commentators and journalists pits the faces and voices of racing against each other, competing on every South African race meeting, covering KZN, Western Cape, Gauteng, and Eastern Cape.
For regular players the Racing Stars are also in position on the daily leaderboard – so it’s a chance for every punter countrywide to pit their individual skills against the professionals!
The inaugural winner was Winning Form’s James Rich, who banks R500 for finishing on top of the leaderboard for 1 April.
For the 30 days of April, there is R27 000 up for grabs, with a R500 daily Racing Stars winner takes-it-all prize for each race meeting.
The 1 April leaderboard:
| Pos | Alias | Points | Wins | Rank |
| 1 | James Rich | 93.07 | 3 | 313 |
| 2 | Germaine Maharaj | 90.29 | 2 | 517 |
| 3 | Graeme Hawkins | 90.07 | 4 | 538 |
| 4 | Anthony Delpech | 89.82 | 4 | 551 |
| 5 | Cecil Mthembu | 87.41 | 4 | 804 |
| 6 | Darryn Burroughs | 87.07 | 3 | 842 |
| 6 | Deez Dayanand | 87.07 | 4 | 842 |
| 8 | David Thiselton | 86.57 | 3 | 886 |
| 9 | Gary Lemke | 82.25 | 2 | 1611 |
| 10 | Paul Lafferty | 81.57 | 2 | 1687 |
| 11 | Clyde Basel | 81.52 | 3 | 1709 |
| 12 | Craig Peters | 80.57 | 4 | 1869 |
| 13 | Grant Knowles | 80 | 2 | 2023 |
| 14 | Devon Pretorius | 77.52 | 3 | 2588 |
| 15 | Nadine Low Ah Kee | 76.27 | 2 | 2839 |
| 16 | Lance Benson | 74.5 | 2 | 3312 |
| 17 | Sheldon Peters | 72.25 | 2 | 3911 |
| 18 | Henk Steenkamp | 72 | 2 | 3934 |
| 19 | MJ Byleveld | 71.57 | 3 | 4046 |
| 20 | Neil Pretorius | 71 | 2 | 4194 |
| 21 | Rahiel Radhakrishna | 70.84 | 3 | 4261 |
| 22 | Dave Mollett | 69 | 2 | 4645 |
| 22 | Lyall Cooper | 69 | 1 | 4645 |
| 24 | Warren Lenferna | 68.84 | 3 | 4727 |
| 25 | Darryl Maree | 68.25 | 2 | 4837 |
| 26 | Andrew Harrison | 67.57 | 1 | 4951 |
| 27 | Nico Kritsiotis | 67.27 | 2 | 5015 |
| 28 | Rouvaun Smit | 67 | 3 | 5086 |
| 29 | Shaheen Shaw | 66.57 | 2 | 5202 |
| 30 | Devonne Govender | 61 | 1 | 6421 |
| 31 | Brandon Bailey | 60.25 | 1 | 6597 |
| 32 | Vicky Minott | 59 | 2 | 6805 |
| 32 | Andrew Bon | 59 | 0 | 6805 |
| 34 | Alistair Cohen | 57 | 2 | 7167 |
| 35 | Neil Andrews | 56 | 2 | 7363 |
| 36 | Charl Pretorius | 48 | 0 | 8560 |
| 37 | Shalandra Bunseelall | 47.57 | 1 | 8659 |
Run within the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge, there is also R3 000 in prize money for the weekly Racing Stars competition, with R2 500 going to the weekly winner with the most points, and R500 to the player with the most winners for that week.
South Africa’s most popular racing competition pits the skills, wits and form assessment knowledge of players against each other over the designated racemeeting, with the leaderboard being updated after each race.
Players select one horse per race in the free-to-enter challenge and points are allocated for the finishing position, with an additional weighting for a winner based on the Hollywoodbets starting price.
Recently extended to include all local racemeetings, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore, the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge has created a host of big winners.
To date there have been 6 winners of the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge Jackpot prize, including Revash who won R2 325 000 in December 2021, Devo who banked R2 million in October 2022, Alan B scooped R1,5 million in January 2023, Blaikes grabbed R1 275 000 in Feb 2023, while Devon Pretorius and Narsadu picked up R280 000 each after dead-heating when finding the 7 winners at Hollywoodbets Scottsville last Wednesday.
The games is simple and FREE to play. So take up the challenge and take on the stars today!
All you need to do is login to the Hollywoodbets Punters Challenge website with your Hollywoodbets account.
Pick one horse for each of the races, and click submit.
Points are awarded based on finishing position, and the SP of the winner.
The next Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge is at Sha Tin on Sunday morning. Off-time of first is 06h45.
The Racing Stars will be in action at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Sunday – first race at 12h40.
