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Canadian Heir Creates Horse Gambling Tips WebsiteThe Stronach family is one of Canada's most well- known clans of billionaires, admired throughout the country for determination and achievement. Frank Stronach, the family patriarch, is the founder of the auto- parts company Magna International, Inc., while his daughter Belinda Stronach is a Liberal cabinet member from Newmarket- Aurora. The family has recently made headlines for a multi- million dollar charity project to benefit low- income victims of Hurricane Katrina.However, other members of the family have taken a somewhat different direction. Frank Stronach's son Andrew, formerly an executive at Magna Entertainment Corp., has left the family business to pioneer a new venture of his own design. Stronach has invented a high- tech parimutel gambling system that helps betters new to horseracing make more informed decisions about how to approach equine gambling. "I want to help the sport," said Stronach, who has been a horse gambling aficionado for many years. Stronach said that horse gambling is often dangerous for newcomers to the sport. "When you're betting," says Stronach, "you have to bet against experts, jockeys, agents and owners of horses. I don't think it's fair that new people just get slaughtered." To that end, Stronach founded the SheTips company, which help users to lower some of the house advantage when it comes to horse race gambling. Although he denies ownership of the website, many of Stronach's employees say that, as far as they can see, he is the one who hired them and pays their salaries. The site offers access to a database with over four million variables- the kind of inside wagering tip information that is usually available to high rolling gambling clients only. It also offers customers the option of using SheTip employees are "runners:" customers may authorize employees to place bets on their behalves. SheTip customers may participate in a gambling rewards system, called the "Spirits and Sports Player Rewards Points." Users may access the gambling site by phone, online, or through betting machines designed like slot machines that feature, instead of cherries, lemons, and oranges, redheads, blondes, and brunettes. "The girls are just hostesses and salespeople," says Stronach. "By using girls, honestly, it's better because it's less threatening." Although the SheTips beauties are dismissed in this perfunctory manner by the SheTips founder, others involved in the company say that they are integral to Stronach's vision for the SheTips site. For example, the aforementioned player rewards points are paid out not in cash or bonuses but in the opportunity to "party" with a favorite SheTips girl. Moreover, the company has spent a huge amount of money to hire models to travel around the world to promote SheTips. Gord Scoular, an events promoter who worked for the SheTips gambling site, said, "You should see the money he was throwing around on these photo shoots with the models. When they first started shooting the girls, there were seven different looks -- swimwear, Western wear, evening gowns, lingerie, a picture with a racehorse…I had to get the girls to Fargo, to Las Vegas, to France, wherever he needed me to get them. We did group photo shoots at the [Rogers Centre], on a jet airplane, on a yacht, in SUV limos. He was trying to captivate an image for his brochures." |
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