Colin Cameron is the author of “You Bet: The Betfair Story,” which traces the rise of the London-based betting exchange.

Horse racing has a formal history that extends back beyond the beginnings of most sports. In the United States, Saturday’s Belmont Stakes is into its second century. In Britain, my base — where I wrote “You Bet: The Betfair Story” — the third is in play for the same day’s Epsom Derby.

So far so good. After all, heritage sells. Yet horse racing is engaged in an uphill struggle to attract the next generation.

At Aqueduct, a track official once described to me that the job of maintaining crowds as “filling dead men’s shoes.”

In Britain, marketing specialists have distilled the challenge into a quest for “Ben” as well as “Brian.” The latter is a man in his 40s or 50s who savors racing’s traditions and customs. Ben is younger, more aspirational, and online rather than on-the-telephone. Racing to him is an old man’s pursuit.

My own interest in racing was sparked by a desire to bet. At Cambridge, I developed the notion that gambling could be perceived as cool by my fellow freshmen. I ended up far from this but at least at nearby Newmarket, British racing’s headquarters.

Gambling is a common point of entry into horse racing for many, albeit without my pretense. The first draw of horse racing is a chance to win money. Then, sometimes, something else takes hold. Maybe the compulsion to begin a journey from the off-track betting shop to the paddock and the grandstand. There, a lifelong love affair waits.

What has all this to do with the rise of Betfair? My book is about a company’s remarkable success in establishing an international person-to-person betting exchange — eBay for gamblers — and the consequence of the innovation. On Betfair, which says it handles more deals in a day than all of Europe’s stock exchanges put together, you decide the odds and trade with others, viawww.betfair.com.

The relevance of Betfair to the issue of racing’s future audiences is that the company has the power to reach new gamblers. This is the view of Bruce Millington, among others, editor of Racing Post, Britain’s equivalent of Daily Racing Form. My belief, after spending five years on the Betfair story, is also that Betfair can serve as a potential gateway to horse racing for new followers of the game previously underwhelmed by traditional wagering.

Betfair has customers in more than 80 countries. It is currently illegal to access its Web site from the United States. But there is a growing belief that with a new administration in the White House and a deal between Party Gaming, which runs the online poker site PartyPoker, and United States authorities this year, Betfair could become available to United States-based citizens by 2010. The recent purchase of TVG by Betfair has been interpreted as preparation for this.

In Britain, Ben’s tastes are certainly met by Betfair, which emancipates gamblers from the constraints of the traditional bookmaker. There is no pool into which Ben’s money is absorbed. Odds do not shift on the action of others and are often significantly better than the general betting market.

You can also take as well as make a bet. Ed Wray, who with Andrew Black founded Betfair (namely the pair who changed the world of gambling), maintains that in markets if you think something is too expensive to buy you should be able to sell. Ben would agree. So, a few trades on Betfair, then for Ben perhaps a trip to the track.

In all this, a major issue is integrity. Traditional bookmakers in Britain argue that Betfair nurtures corruption. After all, you can take bets on horses losing, bringing obvious temptations. Indeed, this is an issue for all sports on which Betfair makes markets. Most notably, tennis and soccer have faced allegations of match fixing for gain on Betfair.

Betfair’s counterargument is that, with online betting, there is an audit trail. In cases of suspected wrongdoing, simply follow the money. Or, again, as Millington puts it: “It is like a bank with unlocked doors. The safe is open. But steal the money and valuables and they will trace what you take all the way home.”

Betfair certainly seeks to address issues of integrity openly. Memorandums of Understanding — agreements to provide information and alert authorities to suspected wrongdoing — exist with more than 30 international sports bodies. The British Jockey Club signed the first in 2003.

Corruption in racing has always been part of the sport’s landscape and part of its lore.

Yet, today, perhaps more than ever, sharp practices that in the past might have raised an “I wish I had thought of that” smile are, after the demise of many financial institutions for dubious practice, very much out of favor. Racing as home to “Guys and Dolls” style strokes, won’t sell. Ben expects a fair crack.

Ahead of the inevitable deregulation that will allow universal access to Betfair, crucial to American racing is whether Betfair will generate more betting handle — and more income for the sport. Maybe person-to-person betting simply cannibalizes established business.

There is also much to consider generally, not least how the company has changed government attitudes to betting and inspired the adaptation of a business model to markets like gold bullion, all of which is chronicled in my book, along with Betfair’s history from foundation in 2000 to the present day.

Add to this the potential power of Betfair to serve as a recruiting sergeant for the game. What would Ben or Brian think? Certainly, racing everywhere needs all the help it can get.