What is HANA doing??

[Charlie D]

Regarding restricted access for US bettors??

Twinspires lists 45 tracks today. Seven of them I just plain can't wager on and an additional two I can't wager on because I'm a resident of Michigan. Three I can only wager by telephone




This person and people like him/her are being discrimated against by whoever is stopping him betting those tracks and HANA shoulfd be kicking down doors, shouting from the rooftops about this

Are you?

ADW's

I notice PTC mentioned on this forum a lot, Ian has not got Calfornia, NY, Philly tracks on track list as far as i know


PTC is being discrimated against by these racing authorities and HANA should be kicking down doors, shouting from the rooftops about this


Are you???

[Charlie D]

discrimated :eek: :D


discriminated :ThmbUp:

[highnote]

Hi Charlie,

You raise good points. I am disappointed by the lack of tracks on the wagering menu, too.

HANA is working on these issues. Open access is one of the most important issues for all players.

Membership is growing. But it's going to take a lot of members to make change happen.

We'll be able to take donations soon. Having funds will help.

I wish we could move quicker on resolving these issues, but they're going to take time. The industry is so fractured. There are so many tracks and ADWs in so many states, etc. But we're making progress -- even if it isn't always obvious.

So even though the problem is obvious, the solutions have to be agreed upon by a lot of different parties. You can lead the horses to the water, but you can't make them drink. Maybe what is needed is a milkshake? :)

John Swetye, VP HANA









Regarding restricted access for US bettors??





This person and people like him/her are being discrimated against by whoever is stopping him betting those tracks and HANA shoulfd be kicking down doors, shouting from the rooftops about this

Are you?

ADW's

I notice PTC mentioned on this forum a lot, Ian has not got Calfornia, NY, Philly tracks on track list as far as i know


PTC is being discrimated against by these racing authorities and HANA should be kicking down doors, shouting from the rooftops about this


Are you???

[lamboguy]

today ubet was down for over 2 hours. i bet with both PTC and UBET for the tracks that PTC does not carry. i use UBET as a platform to view the race and the entries.

[Charlie D]

Hi John

People and companies are being discriminated against here and in a democracy which i believe the United States is, this should not happen


HANA and it's members are not making enough noise imo


Get onto the Beyers, Crist's of this world and ask them to lend their support, get on to the Owners like Jackson, Iavarone and ask them to lend their support

Try to find the politicians who gamble and ask them for help in Lobbying goverment

Get onto the NYRA, Calfornia etc


Make some noise


Have you looked into the law ? as stated i bellieve the United States is democracy, are these restrictions are breaking individual rights under US law???

[Charlie D]

Ask a Bloodhorse, DRF jouranalist to do an atricle about the plight of this bettor

Seven of them I just plain can't wager on and an additional two I can't wager on because I'm a resident of Michigan.


and this company

I notice PTC mentioned on this forum a lot, Ian has not got Calfornia, NY, Philly tracks on track list as far as i know


and others like them


Make some noise, you never know it may help

[cj]

Ask a Bloodhorse, DRF jouranalist to do an atricle about the plight of this bettor




and this company



and others like them


Make some noise, you never know it may help

If you follow Beyer and Crist, you know both have written more than one article about this very thing.

[Charlie D]

I must read more Beyer , Crist articles CJ :)



What i mean is ask those guys if they would be interested in putting the thier respected people clout to HANA, bit like you get famous people being associated with other Organisations, Charities, but not really doing owt

[Indulto]

If you follow Beyer and Crist, you know both have written more than one article about this very thing.How many data vendors does it take to change racing’s lightbulb?

Like you, Mr. Beyer, and Mr. Crist, HANA’s new advisor, Mr. Fotias is a figure maker of some repute. He is also a veteran of the NTRA Player Panel whose recommendations to the industry must have been read where the lighting was poor or perhaps with “Blinkers On.”

Mr. Fotias’ adept adaptation of the “Declaration of Independence” on the HANA blog is very entertaining, but like SJ’s report in this thread, deals only in generalities. Not that every suggestion deserves a response -- nor every question an answer – but without more specifics regarding future plans, what will compel membership to increase and how will increased membership be utilized to get that lightbulb replaced?

It will be interesting to see whether along with making figures, industry luminaries will figure out how to make the day brighter for horseplayers.

[DeanT]

but like SJ’s report in this thread, deals only in generalities. Not that every suggestion deserves a response -- nor every question an answer – but without more specifics regarding future plans, what will compel membership to increase

Grassroots movements start with generalities to grow, and that has been a focus. HANA is not expected to write a 400 page report on the machinations on changing the game, they just have to offer leadership by standing for something. This is not an HANA-specific issue, most movements grow like this. For example, Obama is leading the presidential race currently. In his grassroots appeal in his speech to the Democratic convention in 2004 he did not talk about numbers in balancing a budget with a powerpoint presentation, he spoke of his broad vision of a better country.

As for membership, we're happy to report that September was a record month, and October looks good.

For the future, as is evidenced on the new sign up report, we are asking for all members who want to contribute, to offer out some skills that can help. So far we have had several people from all facets of the industry that want to contribute in some way. Several horseman have signed up offering a bridge for HANA to deal with horseman groups, bloggers have offered help, and influential horseplayers, like Cary who are invited to panels to speak about wagering have also offered.

Hopefully this will continue over the next couple of months and we can get some play, and get to work a little bit to make the game better and come up with appropriate next steps.

[Indulto]

Grassroots movements start with generalities to grow, and that has been a focus. HANA is not expected to write a 400 page report on the machinations on changing the game, they just have to offer leadership by standing for something. This is not an HANA-specific issue, most movements grow like this. For example, Obama is leading the presidential race currently. In his grassroots appeal in his speech to the Democratic convention in 2004 he did not talk about numbers in balancing a budget with a powerpoint presentation, he spoke of his broad vision of a better country.

As for membership, we're happy to report that September was a record month, and October looks good.

For the future, as is evidenced on the new sign up report, we are asking for all members who want to contribute, to offer out some skills that can help. So far we have had several people from all facets of the industry that want to contribute in some way. Several horseman have signed up offering a bridge for HANA to deal with horseman groups, bloggers have offered help, and influential horseplayers, like Cary who are invited to panels to speak about wagering have also offered.

Hopefully this will continue over the next couple of months and we can get some play, and get to work a little bit to make the game better and come up with appropriate next steps.DT,
Thanks for responding.

Is there somewhere on the blog other than the "Did you know" section that tracks membership? The problem with reports of "record month" without supporting figures is that it creates a situation analagous to not being able to get handle figures from Equibase. ;)

The horsemen offering to be a bridge is significant news. Just as additional horsemen might be motivated to join and do the same if they knew about it, might not other areas benefit from similar disclosures?

While Obama started with a measure of support just by party affiliaton and position with respect to Iraq, he still had to keep coming up with details to gain more. Similarly, HANA's position on takeout, etc. has created a base, but expansion will require more information and possibly input prior to resolution.

No-one expects 400 pages, but a few paragraphs more frequently couldn't hurt. :ThmbUp:

[DeanT]

DT,
Thanks for responding.

Is there somewhere on the blog other than the "Did you know" section that tracks membership? The problem with reports of "record month" without supporting figures is that it creates a situation analagous to not being able to get handle figures from Equibase. ;)

The horsemen offering to be a bridge is significant news. Just as additional horsemen might be motivated to join and do the same if they knew about it, might not other areas benefit from similar disclosures?

While Obama started with a measure of support just by party affiliaton and position with respect to Iraq, he still had to keep coming up with details to gain more. Similarly, HANA's position on takeout, etc. has created a base, but expansion will require more information and possibly input prior to resolution.

No-one expects 400 pages, but a few paragraphs more frequently couldn't hurt. :ThmbUp:
We have the mails going onto a new server where we can harness email addresses in a better way. It was a lot of work to do them by hand. If you notice when you try to sign up you go to Jeff's server now. We'll have better control to tell members how many, how much and it will make it easier to keep in contact.

Only so many hours in the day. Phone meetings happen each week and we have people with jobs and families. The past few weeks alone: The HANA store, Paypal link, email harvesting, logo design, incorporation has been filed and accepted, bank accounts have been set up, advisory board, blog posts, press releases, newsletters, web advertising, HANA website updates, email servers, and much more have been discussed and/or implemented. With people who work for free who are busy, that aint bad.

[Indulto]

We have the mails going onto a new server where we can harness email addresses in a better way. It was a lot of work to do them by hand. If you notice when you try to sign up you go to Jeff's server now. We'll have better control to tell members how many, how much and it will make it easier to keep in contact.

Only so many hours in the day. Phone meetings happen each week and we have people with jobs and families. The past few weeks alone: The HANA store, Paypal link, email harvesting, logo design, incorporation has been filed and accepted, bank accounts have been set up, advisory board, blog posts, press releases, newsletters, web advertising, HANA website updates, email servers, and much more have been discussed and/or implemented. With people who work for free who are busy, that aint bad.:ThmbUp: :ThmbUp:

And the record is?

[DeanT]

I dont know. I assume we're over 300, but not 100% on that. We should have it done this week.

[Charlie D]

I was betting at Kee, Bel, Philly yesterday using a UK bookie


Today i've gone back to the UK Bookie i used Yesterday to bet Philly, Kee, but no markets are listed on their site for these tracks


Phoned up about this and got told the markets are on Auto feed and should be up soon

2 races run at Philly, Kee and Bel start in few minutes, but still no markets



Tracks, Horsemen etc losing revenue because UK book probably don't give a toss



Those people who discriminate against firms like PTC shoot themselves in foot and HANA should be telling them this

[Jeff P]

HANA now has a website. Check it out:
http://www.HorseplayersAssociation.org

I've just completed a web interface for HANA so that we can capture names of new sign ups directly into a database. As of Fri Oct 10 all new HANA sign ups are now being written to a secure database hosted on the JCapper server.

On the JCapper server you say?

HANA is operating on a shoestring. Until we get some donations rolling in we can't really justify monthly hosting fees. Gametheory (who posts here at PA) has agreed to let us host the HTML part of the HANA site on one of his servers. Unfortunately for me that server runs on an Apache/Linux platform. All of my programming experience is in sites hosted on Windows/IIS platforms. Not having a budget to hire a programmer HANA was left with the option of HANA members volunteering to create a site. One thing led to another and next thing you know it was up to me to create a basic site.

Not having PHP/MySQL experience myself, and not having a budget to hire a programmer - that meant that if HANA were going to have a web interface connected to a database so we could capture names, addresses, and emails of new sign ups... well that meant me. And it also meant that the database part of the site was going to have to be hosted on a Windows/IIS platform.

So I rolled up my sleeves...

Actually that last part's not true... See I live at the beach. Sleeves on me would be a real rarity...

I put my sunglasses on and headed for the balcony with a laptop... That's actually more accurate. A couple of days later and HANA now has a site with a genuine web interface.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Part of the web interface that I created for HANA is an Admin Panel where HANA board members can log in and see new sign up info. And this morning after making sure that ALL of the summer's sign ups from the HANA blog were now in the database I was struck by how few sign ups we actually had. Especially considering the number of people who actively post here and regularly call me up and/or fire off emails to me.

Guys, if you CARE about this game...

Get over to the HANA site, and sign up! As in right now!!!

http://www.HorseplayersAssociation.org

Better yet, after you sign up - TELL A FRIEND about us. The first best thing we at HANA can do is sign up LOTS of horseplayers.

One more thing. <G> Those of you who may have hit something this weekend... a nice tri or maybe a pick 4 somewhere... Don't be afraid of the Donate link on the HANA site. We really ARE operating on a shoestring.

Every little bit helps.



-jp


.

[Tom]

Great site, Jeff...I'm on board.:ThmbUp:

[miesque]

As the resident bean counter on the HANA board, I just wanted to follow-up on the excellent points made by Jeff, Dean and John with a few candid comments of my own. On a very basic level we are at the point where in order to maximize the potential of the organization we need to maximize our membership base and we need to start raising some revenue.

There appears to be a lot of expectations being made of HANA and in due time we fervently hope the organization will be to be able to live up to those expectations. However, please keep in mind that the Horseplayers Association of North America has existed as an offiical corporate entity for less then a month. That may seem like a minor, insignificant point, but that was when HANA finally grew up and became a legitimate corporate enterprise and at long last could start laying some definitive organizational groundwork which will hopefully enable it to be an effective vehicle for providing a unifying voice for horseplayers with the goal of achieving constructive changes. The first HANA meeting I attended was August 13 and at that point HANA was basically a very informal collaboration of individuals with a blog, it was not an official entity and there was not much structure. In the two months that have passed between then and now there has been substantial progress made in making HANA a viable, legitimate organization. Once the decision was made to make HANA a true corporate entity and people had to step up and bite the bullet and put themselves in the uneviable roles of officers and members of the Board of Directors, then the organizational building blocks could finally be put in place and that has been our primary focus recently. The past few weeks we have been busy putting in place all of the supporting administrative functions such marketing, accounting/banking, website, membership database, etc...

Now HANA is finally getting to the point when we can move forward from being absorbed with taking care of those basic organizational issues to gaining greater visibility and both increasing the membership base and getting them more involved as well as getting a good gauge on the willingness of those members to be involved and to what extent. That last part is key because any sort of declaration of collective action by HANA (which is what I know a lot of people are looking for) requires a solid grasp of who your membership base is and knowing they will follow through. We are not yet there but we are getting there. I realize there is a lot of frustrations out there and everyone wants something done yesterday. However, this is a gradual process and we are a 100% volunteer organization which means everyone is donating their precious time and there are only so many hours a day to get things accomplished. In addition, as has previously been stated, we are operating on a shoestring budget and that is understandable at this point in time considering where we are on the organizational lifecycle. However we will be reaching a point in time very soon where HANA will not reach its full potential without some positive cash flow and I strongly feel that if HANA is going to have any chance in being succesful things need to be done the right way the first time around because credibility can be far more easily ruined then achieved. A key component of being a viable, successful entity is there needs to be enough cash inflows to offset cash outflows be it for web hosting, P.O. Boxes, postage, letterhead, annual incorporation fees, basic office supplies, etc. While those expenses may seem small, they do add up pretty quickly and the lack of proper cashflow stymies the growth and effectiveness of an organization. I realize times are tough and everyone is tightening their belts but a little can go a long way.

[DeanT]

That post shows why Miesque is considered the brains behind HANA :)

[highnote]

That post shows why Miesque is considered the brains behind HANA :)

I agree. Miesque has really taken the reins!

[jonnielu]

Hi John

People and companies are being discriminated against here and in a democracy which i believe the United States is, this should not happen


HANA and it's members are not making enough noise imo


Get onto the Beyers, Crist's of this world and ask them to lend their support, get on to the Owners like Jackson, Iavarone and ask them to lend their support

Try to find the politicians who gamble and ask them for help in Lobbying goverment

Get onto the NYRA, Calfornia etc


Make some noise


Have you looked into the law ? as stated i bellieve the United States is democracy, are these restrictions are breaking individual rights under US law???

Hey Charlie,

That is a large part of the problem, too many people believe that America is a democracy. Therefore, the people are neutralized by the idea that they will have to first go and round up a lot of other people to stand with them in order to shape government.

America is a Republic, some of its governmental processes are democratic, but its government is chartered by the people in the form of a constitution.

According to that document, which still stands, (much to the horror of many a politician), authority is held by the people. A condition that was established by the Declaration of Independence, and the war for Independence.

Any citizen possessing the guts to stand up for themselves can find that his/her authority has not been taken and or legislated out of existence, but is simply unused by the citizen, for whatever reason.

Whenever anyone is tired of being numbered and driven like cattle, they have the authority to do something about it on an individual basis.

As history has witnessed, no prince can withstand a group of individuals that are wielding their own authority.

jdl

[JustRalph]

As the resident bean counter on the HANA board, I just wanted to follow-up on the excellent points made by Jeff, Dean and John with a few candid comments of my own. On a very basic level we are at the point where in order to maximize the potential of the organization we need to maximize our membership base and we need to start raising some revenue.

There appears to be a lot of expectations being made of HANA and in due time we fervently hope the organization will be to be able to live up to those expectations. However, please keep in mind that the Horseplayers Association of North America has existed as an offiical corporate entity for less then a month. That may seem like a minor, insignificant point, but that was when HANA finally grew up and became a legitimate corporate enterprise and at long last could start laying some definitive organizational groundwork which will hopefully enable it to be an effective vehicle for providing a unifying voice for horseplayers with the goal of achieving constructive changes. The first HANA meeting I attended was August 13 and at that point HANA was basically a very informal collaboration of individuals with a blog, it was not an official entity and there was not much structure. In the two months that have passed between then and now there has been substantial progress made in making HANA a viable, legitimate organization. Once the decision was made to make HANA a true corporate entity and people had to step up and bite the bullet and put themselves in the uneviable roles of officers and members of the Board of Directors, then the organizational building blocks could finally be put in place and that has been our primary focus recently. The past few weeks we have been busy putting in place all of the supporting administrative functions such marketing, accounting/banking, website, membership database, etc...

Now HANA is finally getting to the point when we can move forward from being absorbed with taking care of those basic organizational issues to gaining greater visibility and both increasing the membership base and getting them more involved as well as getting a good gauge on the willingness of those members to be involved and to what extent. That last part is key because any sort of declaration of collective action by HANA (which is what I know a lot of people are looking for) requires a solid grasp of who your membership base is and knowing they will follow through. We are not yet there but we are getting there. I realize there is a lot of frustrations out there and everyone wants something done yesterday. However, this is a gradual process and we are a 100% volunteer organization which means everyone is donating their precious time and there are only so many hours a day to get things accomplished. In addition, as has previously been stated, we are operating on a shoestring budget and that is understandable at this point in time considering where we are on the organizational lifecycle. However we will be reaching a point in time very soon where HANA will not reach its full potential without some positive cash flow and I strongly feel that if HANA is going to have any chance in being succesful things need to be done the right way the first time around because credibility can be far more easily ruined then achieved. A key component of being a viable, successful entity is there needs to be enough cash inflows to offset cash outflows be it for web hosting, P.O. Boxes, postage, letterhead, annual incorporation fees, basic office supplies, etc. While those expenses may seem small, they do add up pretty quickly and the lack of proper cashflow stymies the growth and effectiveness of an organization. I realize times are tough and everyone is tightening their belts but a little can go a long way.



A Clarion call of sorts................... I challenge you guys to match my $25 dollar donation made this morning..........via Paypal............

[BillW]

A Clarion call of sorts................... I challenge you guys to match my $25 dollar donation made this morning..........via Paypal............


Thanks Ralph!

[Tom]

Count me in when I get home tonight. :ThmbUp::ThmbUp::ThmbUp::2::5: