Bob Evans = Elliot Spitzer

[ponypro]

Bob Evans needs to take a hard look at the glee in which the thousands of people "STEAMROLLED" by Spitzer had and multiply that by many times when he falls from grace. Alienating people as a standard operating procedure doesnt work long term. We are approaching a second year with Derby blackout for Youbet and TVG and he is soley responsible. His conference call was reminiscent of WORLDCOM and ENRON. Now his buzzword is "OUR Content Advantage". That sure is a turnabout from a year ago. MEC cant possibly work themselves out in a near depression era economy and this was his brilliant call also. The Industry is desperate for a leader with Integrity. Two examples come right to mind
The late WT Young and Bob Lewis. These men managed huge businesses and multitudes of people with grace and class. NO STEAMROLLER NEEDED.
Frank and Bob, we are anxiously awaiting the next leg down

[NoCal Boy]

Evans has been exposed with his comment "our content advantage." The GP horsemen wanted Youbet in the pools but were forced by Tracknet to keep it exclusive. Now the GP handle is down materially. Given Evans' comments yesterday, horsemen will not be fooled again. I thought Evans wanted open access? ha ha

Good to see PTC working with TVG on signals.

[Scav]

Evans has been exposed with his comment "our content advantage." The GP horsemen wanted Youbet in the pools but were forced by Tracknet to keep it exclusive. Now the GP handle is down materially. Given Evans' comments yesterday, horsemen will not be fooled again. I thought Evans wanted open access? ha ha

Good to see PTC working with TVG on signals.

What choice does TVG have? They have to be losing money, they are carrying bunk ass tracks and all their exculsivity to higher end tracks is now adios. I fully expect them to either merge with HRTV for one channel, or go out of business

[richrosa]

I don't know about you guys, but I feel a change is in the air. I don't thing that this dog will hunt forever.

As mentioned, the various different horsesmen's groups have voiced either publicly or privately their concern with TrackNet. Something's gotta give there soon. All of this angst, and no earnings to show for pissing off an entire industry.

On TVG. Its a brilliant sign that they are working with PTC, who now, except for NYRA and a few others, have nearly the same signal inventory. I don't think TVG is giving up the fight either. Not one on-air personality or production has been eliminated recently, which tells me that they are looking to keep as much intact as they can.

YouBet's press release today, and its follow-up article in Bloodhorse where it was disclosed that the YB is working through a reduced $500,000 line of credit and is in breech of covenants is much more concerning to me, especially in the short-term.

[NoCal Boy]

Youbet's financial covenant issues relate to the IRG write-off of almost $10MM in the 4Q plus other one-time severence charges for Champion's exit and the corresponding effect on financial covenants in their loan facility. Also, Youbet has a $1MM line of credit, of which $500K can be used for IRG. Now that IRG is settled, doubt they need to use $500K for IRG related expenses. Youbet did not even have a line of credit before acquiring UT and their restructuring should be saving them quite a bit of money going forward. We will see how it plays out.

I agree something has to give on signals. It just makes so little sense. If Magna can not sell enough assets, they are likely in Ch 11 soon.

[horses721]

TVG can only take wagers in 12 states so how is it that they get credit for helping the game by promoting it when they can only accept wagers from a small number of states. I'm not going to watch TVG if I can't wager on the races they show and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It has been like this for years so somebody tell me how that is good for racing when TVG doesn't try to get licenses to take wagers from more states? The other ADW's have. If you people lived in a state that TVG couldn't take wagers from I'm sure you wouldn't sing their praises. They are also the ones that started the exclusivity problem we are all complaining about and still hold exclusive contracts for online wagering and won't share their signals for those tracks(such as Keeneland) so why should anybody else want to deal with them and do them a favor by giving them access to their exclusive signals(such as tracknet)?
Oops, I forgot, TVG will let you have their content as long as you are willing to hand back 99% percent of the profit back to them for access to their exclusive contract tracks.
Somebody tell me again why TVG is so great and tell me if you would feel the same way if you lived in one of the 38 states that they don't take wagers from?

[PaceAdvantage]

Are you actually making the case that TVG deliberately avoids opening itself up to new markets by not aggressively going after new licenses? What kind of business sense does that make?

Obviously, TVG has its reasons for taking or not taking wagers from certain states. Some ADWs are more respectful of state law than others, or perhaps the law in a particular state is too muddled for them at the moment and they don't want to take a risk.

[horses721]

Are you actually making the case that TVG deliberately avoids opening itself up to new markets by not aggressively going after new licenses? What kind of business sense does that make?

Obviously, TVG has its reasons for taking or not taking wagers from certain states. Some ADWs are more respectful of state law than others, or perhaps the law in a particular state is too muddled for them at the moment and they don't want to take a risk.

Care to explain why you think it is so obvious that TVG doesn't try to take wagers from more states. Did you contact anybody at TVG and ask them?

Based on what you are saying, all other ADW's are possibly doing something illegal, I'm sorry, not more respectful of state laws, in order to take bets from so many states. What are the risks that ALL OTHER ADW'S are taking by accepting bets from more states? You throw out many acusations with nothing to back them up. How about some facts please.

[garyoz]

Care to explain why you think it is so obvious that TVG doesn't try to take wagers from more states. Did you contact anybody at TVG and ask them?

Based on what you are saying, all other ADW's are possibly doing something illegal, I'm sorry, not more respectful of state laws, in order to take bets from so many states. What are the risks that ALL OTHER ADW'S are taking by accepting bets from more states? You throw out many acusations with nothing to back them up. How about some facts please.

TVG's lawyers applied a very conservative reading to interstate wagering laws. I believe the criterion is that they take wagers from state's which expressly allow wagering as opposed to only excluding those that expressly disallow wagering. The later approach is rolling the dice on how a court would interprete the laws. I believe this TVG issue has been discussed several times on the Board.

This approach could be due to the fact that News America (Fox) is still the majority owner of Gemstar, TVG's parent. Murdoch is always a target of the democrats, and News Corp does have broadcast licenses that theoretically could be at risk for moral turpitude and very deep pockets if sued. This last part is pure conjecture, but my experience is the larger the company the more conservative the reading of the law--more to lose.

Also the TVG sale hasn't closed yet has it? I've lost track.

[PaceAdvantage]

You throw out many acusations with nothing to back them up. How about some facts please.This coming from the person who originally posted the following:

It has been like this for years so somebody tell me how that is good for racing when TVG doesn't try to get licenses to take wagers from more states?horses721 is the king of integrity, so please explain to all of us how exactly it is that TVG "doesn't try" to get licenses. How do you know TVG "doesn't try?"

I didn't make a single accusation. What I did was give you a thoughtful reply. I would appreciate the same in return.