Many people opt to cast a shadow of doom and gloom on the current North American horse racing industry, but one person that doesn't share that opinion is Betfair's Stephen Burn. “There’s potentially massive upside there

(California) for us. We don’t share the doom and gloom that other people have been coming up with about U.S. horseracing.”

An article on Bloomberg.com states that Betfair is betting on the future of California's horse racing industry. Legislation was recently passed in the state which will allow wagering via online exchanges in the future.

The company recently opened a San Francisco office which houses 20 employees. Burn, Betfair's 48-year-old global director of racing, has been cited as saying that the company will be looking to add roughly another 80 employees at the office.

In other Betfair-related news, channelregister.co.uk has run an article about Peter Webb, who has become one of Betfair's leading customers. The article states that Webb wagers a quarter-billion pounds a year through the exchange.

“I doubt there's many people earning more than me on Betfair – it's substantial by any terms,” he was quoted as saying.

“When I looked at Betfair all I could see was opportunity. I dabbled around on several markets, and with several strategies. Horse racing stood out because of the amount of money that went through it, so I started to work really hard at understanding it.”

(With files from Bloomberg.com and channelregister.co.uk)