Why is YouBet slowly bleeding to death?

[PaceAdvantage]

OK, so the $.25 cent per wager fee (with a cap of $20 per month) is going to discourage people. However, there is no other wagering (online) outfit out there that brings as much info to your computer screen, complete with live video. You can complain all you want about the video at times, but no other wagering outfit even offers live video, so it's a bonus anyway you slice it...

And I for one have seen improvement in the video, especially on the web-based version.

So, why is it that AmericaTab is, in their words, "already profitable", while YouBet continues it's steep decline??

YouBet now has all the good tracks (NYRA, Churchill, Santa Anita, Hollywood, etc...), and they are doing worse than ever....something just don't add up...

That $.25 cent per wager fee was instituted just recently, so it can't account for all the trouble YouBet is in. There must be some reason why AmericaTab (which is winticket, brisbet and tsnbet) has almost as many subscribers as YouBet, yet has been around for far less a time period....

I ramble, but you get the point....

Comments??

==PA


PS. I make these comments as a satisfied YouBet user who would hate to see the company go away....

[ranchwest]

If I might interject questions, do the wagers at YouBet and AmeriTab go into the track pools? Where is the money held, offshore or in the U.S.? How do you put your money in and get it out?

[PaceAdvantage]

Both YouBet and AmericaTab are based in the United States....both legally operating in their respective states...and yes, YouBet and AmericaTab participate in the pari-mutuel pools of all the tracks they cover....

I can't speak for AmericaTab (brisbet, winticket.com, and tsnbet), but at YouBet, you can deposit money via check, money order, or credit card. If you are a Total Access customer, you can also deposit money electronically, directly from your checking account....

Withdrawels from YouBet are done by either faxing or mailing them a withdrawel slip, and they in turn mail you a check. It is interesting that YouBet will allow you to deposit directly from your checking account online, but you can't withdraw into that same account....yet....


==PA

[tanda]

I really do think the $0.25 wager fee discourages people.

That is what their share of the take is: a wager fee. I already pay it once. So, it is a wager fee surcharge. Actually, breakage is. So, it is a wager fee surcharge overcharge. No thanks.

Also, they have spent a lot on marketing. Their overhead has got to be a killer.

Quite frankly, I question their managment. That wager fee is such a bad, bad idea. It is an example of short-sighted thinking instead of the long range planning that is needed.

It is obvious that they will only make money with increased handle and the wager fee reduces handle. The revenue from it cannot outwiegh the long term reduction in growth.

[FortuneHunter]

Philly Phone Bet has Streaming Live Video of NYRA Racing as well as other major tracks. No Internet wagering, just phone. There is a $2.50 service charge one time daily on days you wager.

There are times when the "RealPlayer" Video server is full and you can't get the live video.

Does YouBet have live NYRA racing?

How about So. Cal, Kentucky, Florida?

Thanks, FH

[ranchwest]

25 cents with a $20 per month max still seems less than gas, parking, admission, monitor seating, expensive food and drinks, etc.

[JimG]

Interesting subject. My take on the situation is BrisBet and TSNBet are getting numerous horseplayers that already use their services. In return for doing so, Brisbet gives its customers 20% off each month if any bets are made. That amounts to alot for serious Bloodstock reasearch users.

Bloodstock has been around along time and they have quite a following for racing information. Numerous programs use the comma delimeted files put out by them. Plus alot of people download past performances with PP Generator and download Wizard picks.

With respect to YouBet, I also use it and have been since its inception. Alot of users were turned off by YouBet's poor video early on and I remember people making complaints that they had some problems with wagers. I never did and the video was ok once I got a cable modem. Therefore, I think YouBet has to try and re-attract old custormers....which is hard to do, especially when I suspect a number of them are Bris customers and prefer to bet with them for the discount.


JimG

[PaceAdvantage]

Yes, YouBet (Total Access) has NYRA online wagering and live video.

BTW, Total Access means that your money is with YouBet in Oregon and NOT Ladbroke like it used to be, although you can still opt to keep your money with Ladbroke. If you keep it with Ladbroke, you don't get the total access tracks like NYRA, Churchill, etc.

It's a complicated situation right now since they created their wagering hub in Oregon (Total Access). Of course, with YouBet now stating publicly that they will need further financing to continue operating in the future, people are going to be very, VERY reluctant to deposit any substantial money with the Oregon hub that YouBet has total control of....

When I read Friday's DRF article about YouBet and the statement that they are going to need more cash, I guess you can say the writing is pretty much on the wall....which is a total shame.


==PA

[takeout]

I'm just theorizing but I think it might be the irksome factor. That type of pricing for placing bets is just ridiculous.

A friend was using them and liked them a lot. When the changes came down, I think he still used them but bet with a free phone account. Now I believe he may have switched outfits completely. A logical progression, I think.

[karlskorner]

PA

Did you read the DRF today.

"Youbet's financial woes grow" by Matt Haarty

They lost 9.3 million the 1st 9 months this year.

Karl

[Tom]

I have workled at the same desk for the last 15 years - and under three different company names - seems bankruptcy follows me around. Point is, a company might have great service and great products but lose oney due to stupid managment unrelated to the business directly, such as bonuses, high salaries, perks, luxury travel, etc,etc.
Maybe YouBt has problems other than its racing business. They wouldn't be the fist to go broke due to overspending.
Tom

[tanda]

The BRIS discount is a major factor for me. Why pay 25 cents a bet when I get no wager fee and a discount on PPs. I like BRIS PPs, so it is nice. If you don't, maybe it's not appealing. Since PPs are my only overhead, a 20% reduction in PPs is really a 20% overall reduction in overhead.

As to the thought that 25 cents a bet is cheaper than going to the track. Yes, if it was the only alternative, I would do it. But when there are alternatives (with their flaws as well), it is not as attractive.

Plus, they keep changing their structure. Total access, track with phone betting only, tracks with internet too, merger/alliance with TVG, no CDSN/NYRA, then CDSN?NYRA added. That has got to confuse some people.

[Whitehos]

I have been an investor in UBet for the past 5 years successfully buying and selling while publicly calling the management corrupt and incompetent. Very early I recognized the original product to have the potential it has finally reached. With the urging of incompetent management they have developed not one wagering product but I believe 4. 2 cd programs and 2 internet programs. If the customer opts for the the latest programs that include the larger tracks they must sacrifice the original program with the smaller tracks.
I presently own UBet stock and will hold it until it drops to what I paid this last time. I don't use UBet's program. Brisbet gives me a 20%discount on my handicapping material and is easy to use. If I want video I toggle to UBet its free if you don't wager.Only idiots would not see this happening.

EBet offered me $10 if I tried their program out of Penn Nat. I like it and it has video. I even get to wager on NYRA tracks. Last week EBet sent me a voucher for $5.
I only started out with $25 just to test the program and they have already given me $15. They contact me , they thank me for using their program and I appreciate what they and Brisbet do for their customers. UBet does nothing for their customers.

Had it not been for my success with UBet stock in the past I would consider possible litigation against a management team that is at best corrupt.
Whitehos

I to am a UBET customer /not an investor and I'm sad to see what is happening. To me it looks like 3 strikes and your out.

Strike No 1. 0.25/20.00 a month A fixed fee on a credit card OK....$20 I don't know...kinda high, But DO NOT take the fee out of my bank roll. Seeing that fee come out of my account wager by wager is like Chinese water torture. They just keep shoving it in my face one wager at a time. At least on a credit card I only get mad about it once a month. Now with the current pricing structure I can watch the races and odds for free and place my bet with one of the free wagering sites. Even if they sign up more customers only the dumb ones will wager with them so they can be in the position of having more customers and little new revenue to show for it.

Strike no 2. Total Access/Call-a-bet(CAB) They should have seen this one coming from day one. Why would Magna let them move all of their tracks and customers to the UBET hub?....Never happen. There was no way to avoid having 2 accounts one for TVG tracks and one for CAB tracks. They should have allowed for this in the software and could have from the beginning.

Strike no 3. The web version of the software, most everyone thinks it sucks compared to the CD version. All of the resources wasted on this when all they had to do was make the CD version of the software down loadable from a server like other software is.

[harpowitz]

Youbet has 2 significant drawbacks from my perspective. First, the .25 a bet is misleading. They should define "bet". At OTB if you wheel one horse with 3 others, that's a bet; with Youbet, that's 3 bets and th .25 becomes .75. At OTB you pay the surcharge when you win; at Youbet you pay it all the time. Secondly, they sell their live streaming video; and they keep telling you how much better it's getting. Sure, if you have a cable hook-up. It is only when I wrote and complained about the video that they admitted a cable hookup was necessary. I am not paying $30-$40 plus a minimum of a $20 surcharge a month for this service. I'll stick with OTB and watch the nightly replays.

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally posted by harpowitz
First, the .25 a bet is misleading. They should define "bet". At OTB if you wheel one horse with 3 others, that's a bet; with Youbet, that's 3 bets and th .25 becomes .75.

Herb,

Actually, under your example, with YouBet, that wheel would still only cost $.25. As long as it was done on the same ticket, it is considered one bet.


==PA

[harpowitz]

I made this bet a number of times and it cannnot be placed on one ticket. Unless I was doing something wrong one exacta box equals one ticket. I wrote to them about this and they agreed that under the betting system there was no way to key one horse with multiple horses in ex bx situations and produce one bet.
If there is I couldn't figure it and spent a lot of needless .50s.

[so.cal.fan]

PA:
This was discussed some months back, but I have a question.
If you are a You Bet customer, can the IRS check your betting records?
I think we came to the conclusion that most people would not want their business monitored by anyone. I won't use the
California rewards program because of this.

[ranchwest]

I'm not an attorney, but I would think that anything that exists can be subpoenaed.

[PaceAdvantage]

Herb,

You are correct in that you can't wheel up and down...only one way on one ticket. So your example would cost $.50 on YouBet, not $.75.....correct??


So.Cal.Fan,

I would suppose the IRS could subpoena any online or phone wagering account, be it Philly, YouBet, BrisBet, etc....



==PA

Regardless of how the wager fee is calculated, unless you are only playing a few races a month you hit the $20 fee sooner or later.

If you are playing all the time from home and you want to use the internet to watch and wager (regardless of the racing provider)you end up buying a second phone line, unless no one at your house wants to use the phone from about 1:00pm on.

For me the cost of a 2nd phone line and a dial up ISP is almost the same as a DSL (or cable modem) . With DSL internet access is included.

Saw an article yesterday where American TAB(winticket) has about 12,000 customers, double the number they had a year ago. I wonder how many of these are UBET customers who watch on UBET and wager with winticket?

[GR1@HTR]

Originally posted by mrdezo
[BSaw an article yesterday where American TAB(winticket) has about 12,000 customers, double the number they had a year ago. I wonder how many of these are UBET customers who watch on UBET and wager with winticket? [/B]



That is me Mike. Under the old system, they could of charged me the $4.95 a month and I would still wager with them. But $20? Yes I know it is cheaper than going to the track, but unfortunately, the track and the expenses associated with it are not their competition. Youbets competition is PGNO and Winticket/Brisbet. For me it is Bet for free w/ Winticket and get free vidieo from TVG, Youbet, and PGNO. Doesn't get much better than that...

[Alc]

Would appear that the Youbet pricing of .25/bet-20/mnth resulted from their recent association with TVG who has the same pricing structure. Would think that both orgs have to lose accounts and handle considering all of the other free options available. Why pay the .25/bet-20/mnth. DRF web site today announced that Phonebet and Americatab will soon have video available at their sites. Would have to believe that TVG and Youbet have to modify their pricing.

[andicap]

Except those sites said they would not have video for the tracks that YouBet and TVG offer exclusively such as Churchill, NYRA, etc. (Only thing is I can get NYRA video from Philly site now -- wondering if they'll stop it)
They will offer 4 tracks in the afternoon and 4 tracks at night each.

[ranchwest]

I can't see where the exclusivity of broadcasts is attractive to the fan in any way. Any thoughts?

[GR1@HTR]

Whats weird is that do not have excusivity to broadcast. If you want to watch NYRA you can go to PGNO, wanna watch CD or CRC, go to TRN racing feed....Plus if you have TVG, you can watch almost most of it. Funny thing is that since I started getting TVG, I haven't been to my local racebook...

[JimG]

Incidentally, I have not been able to get video at Youbet for several days now. Anyone else having problems?

The player loads and the screen is blank in YouBet express. In the cd rom YouBet it will say "broadcast not selected" even though I have.

Not having problems getting video from any other sources. I am wondering since I have not been using YouBet for betting in quite awhile that they have cut me off from viewing the races? The rest of the service appears to work ok.

JimG

[Tom]

Originally posted by ranchwest
I can't see where the exclusivity of broadcasts is attractive to the fan in any way. Any thoughts?

The fan doesn't matter to these guys-never has, never will.

Tom

[skyblue1]

Thanks for all this info about Youbet. This has convinced me to pull all of my money out of their "service" and put it in another account. When I started the Total Access thing with Youbet there was such promise as to them carrying many more tracks and now in every e-mail I send they say they weren't able to renegotiate contracts (just happened with Turf Paradise and Hawthorne) or they have not yet finished negotiations. I'm out!

GR1- You read a lot of comments where people think that the service is worth the $20 a month as compared to going to track, but you have to compare it the real compeitiion which is the other sites that offer wagering and they are free.

At UBET and TVG they talk about the upcoming on-line betting from CA. They have already lost that battle and don't know it. The big gainers here well be the free wagering sites as players watch races on UBET and TVG and wager elsewhere.

TVG, NTRA, NYRA have this mindset that the racing public will pay a preimum for the priviledge of wagering at the NY, KY and CA tracks. It is a major marketing miscalulation on their part. TVG has a lot of red ink (like UBET) to prove it, it's just lost in all the red ink flowing from their parent Gemstar.

[GR1@HTR]

Semi solution for wagering on CDN/TVG tracks....
OJC: www.675bets.com

They have the best customer service this side of the equator and do not deduct taxes from $600 plus scores like they do here in US. Free too, also they have a rebate program. Wager a $150 and get a free cup of coffee, turn and burn $1,500,000 and get a 53 inch boob tube.

[FortuneHunter]

Is it legal for U.S. Citizens to wager through OJC??

[GR1@HTR]

FH,
As long as the US.Gov doesn't find out, all should be well. Honestly, I'm pretty sure it is legal for us folk to wager w/ them.

[4thandlong]

I signed up with OJC about 2 years ago. They sent me an info pack and at that time, at least, they did accept US players. I'm not positive, but I think you could have US$ accounts. They don't report winnings to any gov't body (IRS) and they specifically said that they left it up to the player to report any income. They don't have internet betting but apparently they are working on it, which is good because getting a phone bet down with a minute or two to go is getting difficult (busy signals), especially on weekends. I should qualify that by saying I haven't used them for about 8 months so maybe the phone service has improved.

[GR1@HTR]

They sure do know how to market and attract customers don't they?

Mssg from BRIS:
"AmericaTab Increases Offerings

AmericaTab, the first major online horse account wagering service to waive all set-up, service and
transaction fees, has added three new service offerings that will increase the speed with which
customers can place wagers, streamline account processing and enhance the interactive experience.

The new service enhancements comprise: four streaming video channels that will carry races from a
minimum of eight different tracks per day through four daytime and the same number of evening
signals; a free online credit card processing system, developed in conjunction with Bank One, that
provides security of a national bank administering the account management; and an online payment
system call PayPal that allows customers to securely, conveniently and cost-efficiently conduct
online transactions.

"We are profitable and our business keeps growing," said Charlie Ruma, a managing member of
AmericaTab, "and because of that we are in a position where we can strengthen our online wagering
service offerings while at the same time better serve our customers' needs."

AmericaTab provides account wagering services through other affiliates, most notably Brisbet.com
and tsnBet.com."

[JimG]

Significant happening at YouBet this week....now one can bet Total Access tracks (Churchill Nyra, etc) and Ladbroke (everyone else almost) at the same time. While we must maintain 2 accounts...now all the tracks can be be under one service.

That is a significant positive development, in my opinion. And switching back and forth is as easy as a mouse click.


JimG

[PaceAdvantage]

Considering you don't get the "good stuff" video at AmericaTab wagering sites (stuff such as NYRA, Churchill, etc), this is a VERY good development. The video choices they are currently offering at AmericaTab are pretty slim, at least I thought so when I quickly glanced at the BRISnet video offerings....


==PA

[Tom]

does this mean BRISBET will be showing the video, or is that on another site? Gosh, in-home betting is sure getting a shot in the arm this week! Somebody pinch me!

Tom

[GR1@HTR]

Yeah, this is greatness. BTW, I caught some of the Winticket video: Very smooth and good picture!

[linrom1]

Take a look at this link, and you'll understand why this company will soon go broke. The extravagance of this management is mindboggling.

http://www.irish-architecture.com/onsite/loh/youbet.html

[PaceAdvantage]

Nice find linrom1. Looks like a nice place to work!!

[Dave Schwartz]

linrom1,

Out of curiosity, how did you ever find this link?

Regards,
Dave Schwartz

[NoDayJob]

Originally posted by linrom1
Take a look at this link, and you'll understand why this company will soon go broke. The extravagance of this management is mindboggling.

http://www.irish-architecture.com/onsite/loh/youbet.html

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Sounds just like the Japanese outfit that bought out my interest in a company that I put up seed capital for. The first thing the Japanese did was to build lavish offices for their "World Headquarters". That lasted for a short time. They have been trying to sell their U.S. operations [now in an old warehouse] since 1990 and still there are no takers. -NDJ