Sam Houston handle declining lately, just like SA.

[trying2win]

--I just read this article about the handle declining at Sam Houston. So Santa Anita isn't the only track encountering this problem.

--There are different reasons of course, why these two tracks have declining handles. For Santa Anita, I think most PA members know many reasons why the handle has gone down there. Magna executives may know how to run their auto parts division brilliantly, but it appears they haven't got a clue in a carload on how to operate a racetrack successfully. For Sam Houston, it appears their declining handle is for different reasons than Santa Anita. There are some clues in this article:

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/todaysnews/newsview.asp?recno=41877&subsec=1

--Any comments Purple Power?

--I played the Sam Houston races for the first time in ages on this Friday. Just a small profit, but it sure beats playing those #@%* Santa Anita races.

T2W

[Zaf]

It is very hard to compete with these darn racinos. The High purses attract the horsemen, the slots attract the people.

I think Sammy has done a good job despite all this.

ZAFONIC

[Zaf]

Here's another example how those one armed bandits help racing.

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/todaysnews/newsview.asp?recno=41863&subsec=1

Saratoga Gaming and Raceway, New York’s first racino, handled $2.5-million on slot machines during its first day of operation on Wednesday, the state Lottery Division confirmed.
The total handle means $218,633 for the track and Standardbred horsemen, with the state of New York receiving $133,366.44. Betting on the races at Saratoga increased 95.7% compared to January 21, from $13,198 to $25,824.

"I’m very enthusiastic," Skip Carlson, track vice president of racing, told the Albany Times Union. "I saw a lot of new faces. All the folks that came will act as goodwill ambassadors. I heard nothing but positive comments about the facility, the machines, and the racing. I’m extremely optimistic."

ZAFONIC

[Whirlaway]

That's pretty sad. 100 times more was bet at the slots than at the windows. I think studies have shown that racinos at Delaware and Woodbine have actually hurt racing's fan base. The horseplayers get lured away by the slots, but the slot players don't bet the horses.

The horsemen are becoming welfare queens, plain and simple. Though given how much this country spends on farm subsidies, that's not out of character with other agricultural interests.

For me the big negative against slots at racetracks is that the sport obviously needs downsizing and consolidation, but slots keep open marginal tracks that now have big slot-fueled purses but very little interest for the betting public. This dilutes the quality of racing at tracks that should be the backbone of the sport.

Once the babyboomers start to retire the states are going to be so strapped for cash that the racing subsidies will be done away with and the racinos will become simply casinos - no racing at all.

[JustRalph]

there is a thread devoted to what has happen at Sam Houston this year. If you search on "Purple power" you will probably find it. It covers why the horses are of much less quality at Sam this year. It has to do with slots in LA.

[sq764]

I am sure Delta hit Sam hard with the slots.. I think more money is being bet over at Delta partly because of better horses and partly because SH lost a lot of those good horses to Delta.

[JimG]

Delta's starting post time of 7PM vs Sam Houston's 8PM starting time fits me on the east coast better during the week. The quality of horses are almost a wash at this point.

JimG

[Zaf]

Tonight's card at Sammy, 6 of the 10 races have 10 horses or more, there is also a race with 9 horses. To me thats a good effort despite all that is going on.

Rather play that than 5 - 6 horse fields at GG, SA.


I agree with Jim about the quality of horses.

ZAFONIC

[BillW]

It should also be noted that as soon as they got the fields up to normal, the handle came back. The use of the term "declining" is a bit deceiving.


It was painfully down at the start of the meet and did unrecoverable damage (unrecoverable in the sense of maintaining the status quo). Reducing the purses and droping low profit days is more damage recovery than damage control.

Last nights handle, for instance has been rather typical of a Friday night @ $2.57 million and would have been considered a strong Friday night last year. Friday before was just over $2.6 million also.

Bill

[Zaf]

Saturday Night Comparison - Jan 31,2004

On - Track Attendence / Handle

HOU Att: 3,210 Han: $179,615

DED Att: N/A Han: $67,731

In total Sammy handled about 1 million more than DED Sat night when you include the off track money.

Both tracks had many 10 + horse fields.

ZAFONIC

[BillW]

Originally posted by zafonic
Saturday Night Comparison - Jan 31,2004

On - Track Attendence / Handle

HOU Att: 3,210 Han: $179,615

DED Att: N/A Han: $67,731

In total Sammy handled about 1 million more than DED Sat night when you include the off track money.

Both tracks had many 10 + horse fields.

ZAFONIC

Yea, Sat. was in excess of $2.7 Million. An extremely good Sat. nite (usually $300 - $400 thou lower than Friday and right at $2 Million most of the time last year). The on track is pretty typical ... 3000 - 4000 and about $60/person.

When the handle was down in Nov. and Dec., some nights it was short of the norm by the total DED handle (i.e. HOU would be $1 Million short while DED handle was $950,000 total). Short/lousy fields really pissed people off I guess.

Bill

[VetScratch]

I found the article to be a little misleading:

Saratoga Gaming and Raceway, New York's first racino, handled $2.5-million on slot machines during its first day of operation on Wednesday, the state Lottery Division confirmed.

The total handle means $218,633 for the track and Standardbred horsemen, with the state of New York receiving $133,366.44. Betting on the races at Saratoga increased 95.7% compared with January 21, from $13,198 to $25,824.

Why didn't they put it as it really was:

VLT Handle: 2.5-million (actually $2,574,377).
VLT Drop: $218,633 (61% to state, 10% to lottery division, 29% to racino)

State Schools: $133,366 (61%)
Lottery Division: $21,863 (10%)
Racino: $63,404 (29%, split between harness track and Standardbred industry).

BTW, the current "pre-programmed" drop is 10%, so lucky first-day slot players got paid about $39,000 extra, which will be recovered over the course of time (i.e., in future days).

[sq764]

You really think 61% goes to the state schools??

[VetScratch]

SQ764,

Absolutely... it's the law!

The legislative target for VLTs is to collect $2-billion+ annually for the state education fund when all authorized tracks have VLTs in operation.

[VetScratch]

BTW, the optimistic $2-billion annual education funding target is based on the NY governor's new bill that proposes extending VLT franchising far beyond racetracks. This bill, of course, is opposed by tracks and horsemen, who would not benefit, but is backed by the casino industry.

[ranchwest]

Originally posted by VetScratch
SQ764,

Absolutely... it's the law!

The legislative target for VLTs is to collect $2-billion+ annually for the state education fund when all authorized tracks have VLTs in operation.

And is there a law that mandates whether other revenue sources are assigned to schools? While most of us don't want to admit it, it is all a shell game.

[VetScratch]

RanchWest,

The NY VLT legislation directs the state share to public education, but as you said... it really is a shell game to avoid raising income or real estate taxes. When you are looking at a $6-billion state deficit, education sounds like a good cause to folks who might otherwise oppose VLTs.

BTW, the $2-billion goal bandied about by lobbyists is based on best-example per machine statistics from other states. The proposed massive VLT expansion beyond the tracks will not subsidize racing in any way.

[PurplePower]

Originally posted by trying2win
--I just read this article about the handle declining at Sam Houston..............
--Any comments Purple Power?

--I played the Sam Houston races for the first time in ages on this Friday. Just a small profit, but it sure beats playing those #@%* Santa Anita races. T2W I am just reading this thread as I left Houston Saturday morning for the HBPA convention in New Orleans. Stayed first night with my oldest son and 3 grandkids then Sunday night at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. (Tough life, but somebody ....etc.)
HOU GM thought for some reason that Sammy needed to race MORE days instead of less. We moved up our traditional start date a full weekend and added a day to what would have been our traditional 3-day opening weekend. We also got at least one extra weekend on the end of our meeting that traditionally ended the last weekend in March (or first of April depending on the calendar). SHRP drastically overpaid purses the first month when handle hovered around the $1M mark rather than the $2M of past years. Small field sizes due to early Delta competition and fact that horsemen didn't have a weekend between Retama and HOU meant many small fields - not to mention the competion from football. Football probaby has more impact on wagering handle at HOU than does loss of fans going to Delta to play the slots. After Thanksgiving handle returned to the $2 M mark and has improved to the $2.5 M area the past month with all the snow outs in the east. We should have never gone to the extra dates anyway. What would have been a small regression early may have been offset by the good handle we have now.
Players constantly harp about the "takeout" as hurting our industry. I agree in principle, but when SHRP offers a 12% takeout on some large field pick threes, our handle stays stagnant at $10,000 per Pick three. Larger tracks with 25% takeout handle $25 to $30K with 5 and 6 horse fields and payouts of $25 (FG Sunday for example). The lateness of our posttime may be part of the reason, but on the BRIS net "favorite track' poll, SHRP was voted as the favorite Night time signal and fifth favorite overall. (Of course, Magna tracks were not included.)

We do not have an aggressive program to take care of our horsemen or encourage trainers from Delta or FG to race in Houston. I talked to trainers from Delta that brought horses to HOU for stakes races and others that tell me they have to wait 6 weeks to get a runner in at Delta. That is 4 weeks to long for most of those horses. Delta will be going up to a minimum claiming eligibility of $5000 next year. That will help some, but one prominent Delta trainer told me last night that he would be staying at Evangeline Downs next year because of the inability of getting horses in. Moving the John Connally to April 10 (closing day) was another questionable move. The Connally had a nice niche in February (twice in past three years was biggest purse race running on that day) but our admin thought it would show that we could compete in April and should have dates that lasted through the Kentucky Derby. Now we will be faced with fact that FG horses will be gone (FG closes two weeks before April 10), we are racing on Easter Saturday (not a good idea in largely Catholic and family orieinted area), Keeneland is running graded turf stakes on that weekend - just to mention three.

There is a big push for VLT's at racetracks and if they are not forthcoming, Texas racing is in for more purse cuts at Dallas (Retama cut back to just 40 days of racing this year already).

I'll be back in Houston late tonight and racing resumes Thursday.

[trying2win]

--Interesting comments on your post here, Reid.

Thanks,

T2W

[VetScratch]

Purple,
There is a big push for VLT's at racetracks and if they are not forthcoming, Texas racing is in for more purse cuts at Dallas (Retama cut back to just 40 days of racing this year already).What always irks me is that legislatures don't take the their budget woes and the economic impact studies that they all get about the horse industry straight to the public.

Why can't they sell the much cheaper alternative of direct taxes to save thousands of agribusiness jobs or educate millions of kids instead of goofy VLT schemes where the gambling industry charges 20%-40% on the dollar to collect the very same tax revenues from those who can least afford to pay it?

In the end, the poor feed the slots way out of proportion to what they would be asked to pony up through real estate or income taxes. In the aftermath comes a dramatic increase in welfare costs.

If the new VLT expansion proposal in NY results in 35,000+ machines that provide $2-billion/year for education, the public will have lost almost $3.3-billion to achieve this goal, and the ALC white paper asserts that the racetrack VLTs will suffer from the new wave of VLT competition. It seems to me that taxes to raise $2-billion for education and $0.3-billion for agribusiness (racing) would put an extra $1-billion back into household budgets where poor kids live.
:confused:

[PurplePower]

VS,
When Las Vegas was the only place where one could gamble, that money might stay in the less wealthy home. Even then, however, there were back room poker games and illegal liquor sales. With games available just across the border (and in some cases just up the road from the racetrack a la Canterbury Downs at the time) the extra taxes would just mean a few more dollars from those homes. In Texas there is not a state income tax, but property taxes are high. Property taxes paid for one of the best school systems in the country until about 10 years ago, but those taxes leveled out and finally lost ground to the increasing school age population. I would rather players come out to the track to play - but this is a new day and time. If most horseplayers want to stay home and play online, I think the industry should maximize those opportunities. If most of the non-racing public want to play slot machines, I have not problem with them doing their playing at a racetrack and thereby helping keep horse racing going.

[VetScratch]

Purple,

My problem with slots is that they are taxation which costs the public much more than a direct tax to support education, racing, or any other cause.

When all economic factors are considered, including increased welfare costs, $0.65-to-$0.75 in direct taxation has the same net effect as $1.00 in slot drop. Therefore, if the state budget, the racetracks, and horse industry need $650-to-$750-million, the public must lose $1-billion to the slots in order to pick up the tab.

Given truthful options, are voters too dumb to pick the cheapest way to be taxed?

If a politician doesn't have the intelligence or moxie to explain the economic truth to his constituents, he "should" be voted out of office. When the majority of politicians bamboozle the public and get away with such weaseling, it's time for the "night riders" to pay them a visit (after they leave Ken Lay's estate). :)