Meta Me At The Track: Tezos NFT-Powered Horse Racing Project Stables, and Why it's Awesome

If there are 2 things that currently grab headlines in the blockchain space of 2023, they are (in no particular order) new Web 3.0/metaverse use-cases and blockchain partnerships with successful international brands. In Tezos NFT-powered, metaverse-based horse racing platform "Stables", the good people of the larger blockchain space will find a healthy measure of both these key ingredients at once. (We all know my love for horse racing!)

PMU is one of France’s largest and most successful gambling brands. It boasts more than 500,000 players across its online horse racing, poker, and sports betting platforms, and has been in operation in France for almost a century. PMU’s move into the Web 3.0 space with Stables represents a significant shift in approach for the sports betting giant, but it isn’t a decision that the brand has taken lightly. It comes on the heels of new regulations in France around gambling and betting, which served as a motivational tool to push the PMU team to explore new avenues and opportunities. As PMU Innovation Director (and Founder/CEO of Stables) Constantin Garreau puts it,

“The idea when we started this project was to say maybe we should use Web 3.0 as a company as a way to move from gambling to gaming, and to gain space and freedom as a company and be able to reach new audiences. That was the bet we made one year ago.”

To that end, the team at Stables began conceptualizing an ambitious and robust vision of a horse racing-centered metaverse with a strong organic connection to real world horse racing and the economies and stakeholders within it. In Constantin’s words,

“We really want to leverage the link with reality. We don’t just want to build a virtual game. That could be cool, but as a company we are owned by horse owners in France and we want to leverage the value of our very strong partnerships in horse racing. The work we are currently doing as a team is to build a complete digital universe where you will have real races, where we will have hybrid races — where you will link your horse to a real horse that will be racing, and where you will be able to buy equipment and increase the value of your horse and to make choices about how to train your horse and enter it in virtual races as well. That’s the first stage of our game. The next part is, we want to build a complete economy around the game — places to breed your horse to create new NFTs, stables for your horses to live in, jockey clubs where you’ll be able to meet other players. The idea is to recreate the real atmosphere of the horse racing world.”

While this type of “Play to Earn” gaming — where participants receive digital rewards with real world monetary value for participating is certainly not new, the team at Stables, with its huge PMU user base, links to the real world gambling economy, and its ambition to build a functional digital economy within the metaverse itself, holds the promise of delivering a ‘Play to Earn’ gaming model that far exceeds what currently exists in terms of functionality and user participation.

Stables has scheduled its first generation horse NFT drop for March 27, 2023, and the community clamor to claim a spot in the Stables whitelist and participate in this drop is very real.

The reason for the buzz surrounding the Stables NFT drop is that it offers a real-world / NFT connection unlike any that the industry has seen before.

“When you own your digital horse, you will have a unique link to a unique real horse. One real world horse, one NFT. There are no ‘rarity levels’ or anything like that. When your real horse competes in a race and wins rewards or points for winning the race, your digital horse will earn exactly the same. We are creating a new layer of value in our digital space.”

Indeed, the value proposition with Stables is a very intriguing one. Digital ownership and Web 3.0 gaming mixed with a healthy dose of real world sport participation is a promising model that could help propel blockchain-based ‘Play To Earn’ games into the mainstream. With the enormous buzz that this project has managed to generate in the space of late, and its potential to draw significant attention in the months ahead, its connection to the Tezos ecosystem could prove hugely beneficial for all involved.

In its search for stable ground upon which to build this fascinating and ambitious Web 3.0 project, Constantin and the Stables team decided in the very early days to stake their claim right here in the Tezos ecosystem. In a recent episode of the TezTalks Live podcast, I had the opportunity to ask him why. Here’s what Constantin had to say:

“Tezos appeared to be a good choice because we didn’t want to build something speculative. We really wanted to make it a long-term project. We thought that by choosing Tezos, we could be involved in the governance of this blockchain. We also pretty sure that there weren’t any huge wallets with hundreds of millions that were going to come and disturb what we were doing. It’s definitely part of the backbone of the project. It was the best choice when we took the decision almost 1 year ago. We are really happy with what we are doing on Tezos and we are really enthusiastic about the Tezos roadmap. We’re pretty sure we are in the right place.”

As the reality of Web 3.0 and metaverse projects like Stables begins to come into sharper focus, and as these platforms build audiences and attract new users to the space, it stands to reason that their connections to the Tezos ecosystem will shine an increasingly bright light on this ecosystem’s technological advantages and utility. For anyone participating in the success and growth of this dynamic ecosystem and the amazing projects being rolled out within it- this really can’t be viewed as anything other than fantastic news. A brighter and more fascinating tomorrow is right around the corner and we have a front row ticket to witness this event, so grab your popcorn and let the fun begin!