The Montana Lottery is hoping to kick off a statewide fantasy football betting game by September in time for the professional football season, the agency's director said Monday.

The fantasy game is part of plan passed in the 2007 Legislature to save Montana horse racing by allowing the Board of Horse Racing to also offer fantasy-sports betting. The board, which currently gets it money from racing licensing fees, had been on the brink of financial collapse as the sport and industry declined. Currently, only three Montana cities offer horse racing: Billings, Great Falls and Miles City.

"If we don't get this fantasy thing going, you're not going to have to worry about next year," said Al Carruthers of Butte, the board chairman, at a meeting Monday. "There won't be any Board of Horse Racing."

Carruthers spoke at a board meeting Monday in which members agreed to work with the Montana Lottery to come up with the game. Sherry Meador, the board's lawyer, said she expected football will be the first of what could be many kinds of statewide fantasy sports betting, including baseball and NASCAR.

Fantasy sports leagues are common pastimes in which participants organize their own "ideal" team pulled from the ranks of all professional athletes in a certain sport. That "fantasy team" scores points based upon the actual performance of players in real games. At the end of the season, the person with the most points wins.

Although fantasy leagues exist nationwide, Montana is one of four states that allows betting on the leagues. Traditionally, such betting was done informally among friends.

Monday's meeting was the first concrete step the racing board had taken toward offering an official fantasy sport betting game since lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the plan in a bid to save the sport last year.

Before the Montana Lottery stepped in, Meador said the board was in a bind: It didn't have the money to hire a company to design the game, but it couldn't get money until it had the game.

About a month ago, the board learned it could pair with the Lottery to design and offer the game.

Carruthers repeatedly called the Lottery's involvement "a blessing from heaven."

George Parisot, director of the Montana Lottery, said his agency got involved at direction from the governor's office.

But it seems well-suited for the task. His office already designs most of the lottery's games, including Scratch-and-Win tickets, and employs many computer programmers and other game designers eager to take on the new task.

Although the racing board does not have a formal agreement with the Lottery, Parisot said his game designers are starting this week to design the game.

Roughly speaking, it would work like this:

The game would only be offered at bars or taverns. Taverns would have to register with the Lottery as they do now to offer lottery tickets.

Players would bet a set sum, pick their teams and register those rosters with the Lottery.

Winners would be announced every week.

Participants would select entire defensive lines pulled from one National Football League team.

They would also select quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends and kickers. Those players could be pulled from many different teams.

Some 74 percent of all the money wagered on the game would be returned to players. The remaining 26 percent would be split among the Board of Horse Racing, the lottery, and the tavern that offered the game.

Parisot said it's difficult to tell how much money Montanans might wager on the new game, but he estimated it could be around $3 million to $5 million.

The Board of Horse Racing's share of that could be enough to keep the board in business and jump start the sport in towns no longer offering it, said Scott Meader, of the Western Montana Fair in Missoula.

Missoula hasn't offered horse racing in two years, Meader said, owing to a number of factors, including changes in insurance for jockeys.

"Some of those dollars will trickle down," he said.

The money could be a boost for the entire horse racing industry, he said. With fewer races, there are fewer horse breeders.