How is racing doing?
 

This is rhetorical, but at a time when all of America is encouraged to stay at home and there are no major sports going on, one would think that betting handles should be through the roof. After all I kept hearing for years about so much competition. But for some strange reason, when the competition is gone handle doesn't go anywhere.

Maybe racing should re-evaluate their high takeout, feed the whales campaign. Nah, silly me. It is obviously the economy, Yawn.

https://kentuckysportsradio.com/main...irus-pandemic/

https://www.baltimoresun.com/gamblin...z4e-story.html

https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...&ct=clnk&gl=us

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

You should go to work for CNN. Obviously if you have less tracks running the existing customer base is going to bet there money at the tracks running. But the actual numbers are a little less optimistic. I was referring to converting the millions of sports watchers/bettors into the sport of kings. Let's try this link.

https://www.horseracingnation.com/ne...Less_Races_123

as incompetent and myopic as racing generally is, they've done a decent job with the covid stuff.

Very good on Saratoga, to take an assertive stand on the position of jockey distancing. That was an issue that was quietly threatening the second half of the season.

36% fewer races and handle is up.

You're right...it's a disaster out there.

CNN here I come.

my memory is awful , and my search-engine work ethic is nearly as awful at this moment,
but Belmont didn't race in May this year, Oaklawn had like 2 dates in May this year,
-not sure, but IIRC not much major track races held in May 2020, (and the significant-handle Kentucky Derby/Oaks stuff was obviously not run in May 2020)

The April/May stuff just seems like silly statistics w/out the needed context.

Jan/Feb &June seem surprisingly impressive

Hey if you are satisfied with that during a time there are no major sports, our entire population is encouraged to stay at home, people are bored out of their minds, basically all competition is squashed..... forget CNN, the racing industry will love you.

I never said it is a disaster out there. I have always said that the racing industry uses a bad model that can never go anywhere and in these very strange times, the illustration is loud and clear. As far as 36% fewer races, what is the difference. I don't know about others, but I personally play 1 track per day. I am sure some play 3 or 4, but not sure why it matters if 8 tracks are running or 12 tracks are running. I believe that is a fairly irrelevant factor in all of this. What matters imo is total handle. To quote Nitro. "Look at Hong Kong"

I am against condensing the industry because I think small tracks serve a purpose for the industry (providing opportunities for horses to run, trainer to train, jockeys to ride, local fan bases to be introduced to the sport) , not because I think it makes a big difference in total handle.

Have you factored the 10s of millions of jobs lost into your handle calculation?

You think losing your job and the uncertainty of our times might lead some people to cut back on their gambling endeavors? Racing being the only game in town or not?

Work that into your equation and CNN will get back to you for a follow-up.

i think its amazing what has happened to horse racing. don't forget the federal indictments had to help in a big way.

now if they can ever get rid of after the bell betting or perception of after the bell (whichever your choose to believe) you will get an exponential growth in handle.

eventually the crw won't mean a thing if they open it up to more new bettors. they will be bashing each other's brains inside out.

Oh yes, most definitely...I'm sure poindexter agrees with you 100% on that one.

I was wondering the same thing last weekend when I walked through the Vegas casinos and saw all kinds of folks sitting at $25 minimum blackjack tables. Of course I did and imo, if racing had a competitive gambling game (8 % takeout wps and 12% takeout exotics and no rebates) the game would have already been so far ahead of where it was in February 2020 and this pandemic would have given this game a huge boost. This is my opinion and I am sticking with it.

Meanwhile let's go back to discussing past posting, as highly rebated whales pound horses on the last tick and everyone watching realizes that there is something wrong with the game (only they are thinking something a lot worse is happening-like past posting) when winner after winner goes from 7-1 to 3-1 or 8/5 to 1-1 after the race is off. Somehow being paid 6/5 on a blackjack isn't that bad of a deal after all.

I’m shocked that racing is still here. Then again, I guess most tracks wouldn’t be without the casino money or state subsidies. I don’t know a single person who’s become a horseplayer in the last 20 years. People here in Baltimore don’t even follow the Preakness anymore. 20-25 years ago I’d have a dozen coworkers ask if the Derby winner was going to win the Preakness. A few of the young kids go to drink and look at girls but that’s about it.

What is amazing? That with everyone ordered to stay at home that nationwide handle is back to normal. As touched in on my last post the best way to minimize the late odds swings is to reduce takeout and eliminate rebates and that coincidentally (lowering takeout and eliminating rebates) is the only way this sport will ever see any kind of major growth period. As long as we live in the world of high takeouts and rebates this sport will never maximize it's potential.

To Quote Jeff Platt of Hana

Rebates can affect your bottom line in a very profound way. Aside from discipline, the ability to execute a game plan, a willingness to roll up one's sleeves and go to work... every single professional player that I have met in the past 10 years shares one other thing in common...

All of them... every single one... earns rebates.



Because of the parimutuel betting format, every player that does better than the track take and also gets rebates is increasing the takeout on the rest(I have illustrated this in too many posts in the past) When you already have excessive takeout to begin with the effects of all of this means the game becomes too hard for new blood to compete enough to enjoy the game. It is really this simple.

I'm going to take a viewpoint neither side will probably like and say I actually think racing has done a good job presenting its product during the pandemic. When racing was given hours of airtime on weekends to show races around the country, they aired a strong program that gave detailed coverage that catered to knowledgeable horseplayers with excellent information about races around the country.

I don't see what else could have been done in the short term. I don't consider the 25% drop in handle with no competition a raging success, but then considering massive unemployment, disease, general panic, and the rest of the disasters in America in 2020, how do you even compare it to normal times? Maybe 25% decline is good? Who could possibly know?

Racing still has all of the problems it had before, but they are the same issues it's been facing and mishandling for 30 years now, but how it handled the past three months isn't the cause.

Imo, I noticed a positive chain of events starting back in March after a number of tracks had been ordered closed.

Instead of shipping out to compete in cherry picked spots, trainers at tracks that were running simply ran their horses locally.

This resulted in increased field size for the tracks that were running.

The uptick in field size resulted in more competitive races.

Imo, this was especially noticeable on weekdays when the two primary tracks were Will Rogers Downs and Fonner Park.


-jp

.

Ocrunk on Twitter has been posting the daily totals. It mirrors pretty much last year in terms of numbers, slight uptick. It all depends how you frame the stats to show gains.

Poindexter,

Since you quoted me... :)

Imo, one of the biggest problems isn't rebates per se, but rather the way tracks and horsemen have gone about addressing rebates.

Starting in about 2006, tracks and horsemen began working to implement source market fee.

For those who may not know:

Source market fee is a 'tax' on your handle that reduces rebates for small everyday players (but not big high volume players.)

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say 90% or more of all players regularly posting here at Paceadvantage are prevented from getting rebates because of source market fee implemented by tracks and horsemen in state after state.

I once advocated for rebates because rebates are a form of reduced takeout.

At the time, I saw rebates as the only way the small everyday player could get reduced takeout.

But tracks and horsemen have clamped down on that by implementing source market fee in state after state.

At the same time (a few promotional wagers aside) tracks and horsemen have done little in the way of offering meaningful takeout reduction to the small everyday player on the bets that (Imo) really matter: WIN and EXACTA.

And because whale teams have the wherewithal to be located overseas - they are not subject to state source market fee.

The end result is an unlevel playing field.

The sophisticated large volume whale team not only has access to CRW - but also enjoys a much lower net effective takeout on all wager types than the small everyday player armed with a copy of the DRF and a ballpoint pen.

I'd be ok if rebates were completely eliminated:

IF TRACKS AND HORSEMEN CREATED A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD BY REDUCING TAKEOUT ON ALL WAGERS TO THE SAME NET EFFECTIVE TAKEOUT CURRENTLY ENJOYED BY THE WHALE TEAMS.


-jp

.

My conclusion is that 8% wps takeout and 12% exotic takeout with the elimination of rebates is appropriate. I could even accept a little higher takeout on pick 4's and above, maybe up to 14 or 15%. I don't know how that compares to the net effective takeout of whale teams currently, but in my mind that takeout would maximize the growth of this game, while preserving a decent profit margin for the racetrack. So what exactly is the logic of a system that prevents 90% (your number not mine) of avid horse players from getting rebates while whales (the sharpest horseplayers in the land) are able to get huge rebates and make it much harder for the non rebated player to even reach the break even plateau let alone win?

Just to illustrate my point. When I was in Vegas I was playing on one of those $1 minimum blackjack slot machines. It is basically simulated blackjack. Now I have no idea how these things are programmed(do they actually simulate a deck of cards and deal or is it programmed to win a certain percentage of time and lose a certain percentage of the time and the rest is theater-I have no idea). But the point is that some guy comes by (I think 2 players can play at a time on it) and is watching me play. He watches about 10 hands or so where the dealer is getting mostly 20's and 21's and then he seems my 20 against a dealers 16 get beat by the dealer pulling a 5 and getting 21, and he shakes his head and walks away. He wasn't even the one losing, but the game looked rigged to him and he had enough.

My belief is that racing does this to people all the time either consciously or unconsciously. I also believe that the high(excessive) takeout combined with the added advantage of rebates to whales make the takeout unconscionable. This is why people that go to the races are consistently walking away from this game just like the guy walked away from the blackjack machine shaking his head. This is why I am very persistent in my stance. This can be an incredible game and the powers that be just choose to screw it up. Sounds like another group of folks (won't mention who they are in this forum :)).

If we learned anything from this past few months, by law, only OP and TAM and FON should be allowed to run from January through June from now on. :headbanger:

Legally the machines have to simulate an actual deck of cards however I believe most shuffle after each hand/round. So there is no way of counting the computer. Same thing with Video poker.

I get your point though the same thing can happen at a table.

Don't forget a lot of sports bettors took up stock and options trading!

That is what happens when you overprice your game, people find better/other options. You just gave the racing execs a new excuse. They love excuses. "we had this golden opportunity when everyone was stuck at home with nothing to do but bet horses and that damn stock market got in the way, we just can't get a break....."

anything but rosy
 

My two cents - the long term outlook is pretty bleak, especially for the smaller operators that had to sit on the sidelines for a few months. Santa Anita's re-opening was disappointing - with mostly unbettable cards after opening day. Del Mar off to a rough start, and with PITA and the costs, racing in Californy is in peril. Very suspicious rides at Tam and GP when they were a couple of the only tracks running - boat rides and strangles galore, IMHO.

I've been suggesting for years that racing in North America is headed for what passes for the sport in South America - very high takeout, and very low quality horses. COVID has accelerated the timeline of decline, significantly. There's too much greed and graft for takeouts to be reduced, rebates to be eliminated, or drug testing to become effective. The status quo of the movers and shakers in racing are parasitic barnacles, bent on killing the host.

I play a card or contest here and there, but mostly on overseas racing. Like ronsmac pointed out, there seem to be very few new fans - I can only think of one under 40 off the top of my head that I know, and he bets more on sports.

Enjoy it while you can....

90% of the audience here has zero understanding that all that matters is revenue from handle. The raw handle numbers fed to CNN and anybody else who cares to look them up are barely even tethered to the bottom line, particularly in times like these (where nobody is on track, and all gate and concessions income is gone).

Most of these tracks are getting creamed in present day 2020 and are staying open merely because something offered to their horsemen (and to scant few employees) in an empty box is better than doing exactly nothing with an empty box while still paying rent/taxes/mortgage on it.


As for your last part, it isn't precisely because of the parimutuel betting format. That's like blaming the teeter-totter for the fat kid on one end of it.

The more appropriate targets for that ire are track operators who still refuse to play to their strengths instead of to their weaknesses. And it has zero to do with the takeout as well. (for the point you think you understand would be parallel no matter whether the takeout were 20% or 2%)


In teeter-totter terms, racing has invited scores of would-be fat kids to load on one side of the teeter-totter while racing and the fat kids just sit there wondering why nobody will get on the other end. The rebates and the direct computer lines into the pools (which are more the cause of those seeming past-posting wagers which really aren't past post than random whales could ever be (without those computer tie-ins)) only exacerbate the problem.

The computer guys, betting at the end, are betting the overlays and getting the full odds picture back in-line with what it should be... thus they are doing most of their playing when the live horses are an overlay, and are noticed by everyone almost exclusively in similar circumstances. (nobody cares when a 21-to-1 shot moves to 47-to-1 on the far turn and then runs eighth)


Back in the 1970's, the distribution of wagering humanity was far more near to equal on both sides of the teeter-totter, and thus John Q. Public could more easily with$tand the typical $helling he might endure on his first few trips to the track. It was track management alone who evolved to seal its own 2020 fate over the past 30 or 40 years by catering only to the tiny sliver of the fanbase and giving only the finger to everyone else. (well, now it's 2020 and everyone else left - and track management did this to themselves, to some degree without even understanding what their actions were doing to them)

The obvious way to correct the stupidity is to support the other end of the teeter-totter, which is what racing should have begun in earnest three decades ago.

The first result of this done properly is that one by one, the rebate people who are barely able to make it in 2020 will fall into to proverbial tank, as John Q. Public at large begins to know a fighting chance for the first time in his racing life. With time, the next set of barely-above-barely-making-it rebaters will fall into the tank, and the rest of the public at large will collectively move higher (in terms of ROI).

In due time a far more competitive game will be genuinely approachable by the semi-intelligent non-players out there who now are far too wise to step-in and prep for the ass-rattling that is their only possible outcome in 2020 (whenever the fat kids decide to step off the teeter-totter for a moment, to go and cash another windfall).

The horse racing venue is the rare business in society which does precisely nothing for its customers, and they continue to wonder aloud, and to themselves why their businesses are dying. The horsemen are putting on the show, the bettors are playing and bickering among themselves, while those operating the venues just stand around with their hands out.


The most horse racing can hope to gain from Covid 2020 is renewed exposure and a lack of competition for entertainment... but every dollar wagered brings only a relative pittance into track coffers under these make-do conditions, so nobody is making any money, and horsemen are (or should be) somewhat thrilled to be getting anywhere near their annual purse revenue.

All while the habitually clueless remain as clueless as ever about all of this.

You're still here?

It wasn’t so long ago before covid 19 that everyone was talking about the demise of horse racing. The hot topic was horses breaking down and a call to ban this great sport. I even remember Vic Stauffer tweeting out something like “ this is the beginning on the end”. My oh my how quickly things have changed.

In any event no matter how much is bet off track the owners of racetracks are still getting crushed. No on track wagering is a major blow because they get to keep the full take out on that money wagered.

People talk about take out , field size and all the parameters of betting horses that actual horse players think about. You have to get to the point of caring about that stuff by being a horse player. The average Joe could give a shit about those things. They’ll dump a hundred into a slot machine and not even question the take out.

The problem with horse racing and I’ll admit I don’t have all the answers but they got to figure out. The perception by folks that it’s complicated, which it is. Some even think it’s crooked cause they watch CNN. And face it, the biggest have gotten caught. Most of these folks don’t want to spend hours reading a form when they can make wagers in a matter of seconds without thinking and may hit a jackpot. Of course the chances are remote but they buy into the dream. Lotto and numbers are the same concept. They could care less what the state’s take. For a great majority of people you are selling a bet, a gamble , an instant dream come true. That’s the society we live in. Until horse racing figures out how to tackle that kind of mentality, which I don’t know how, it will remain stuck in the status it’s acquired. A few young people that become old people with more money to bet. That’s the pattern. The general public jumps on board during big or special events. Day to day....... they could give a crap about horse racing. Quote all the parameters of gaming you want..... that’s reality

It's sad, for those of us old enough to remember racing back in the '80s. I agree with Mr. Haskin that the model that was adopted for the game has turned out badly, though some of what has contributed to the decline in the game is outside of anyone's control. The culture for it has dissipated. There's only a couple of hot spots any longer, like in Hong Kong.

Yesterday's opener at the Spa wasn't so bad for a Thursday, though a 4 horse field is not nearly as thrilling as led to believe by the announcer. And I say that with NYRA being my favorite circuit in North America. Five of the ten races today have less than eight horses. Really? Opening Friday at Saratoga? Yikes!

I like horse racing and wrestling, and both are dying and will eventually be dead. The interest is just not there and the media makes horse racing seem like a thoroughbred genocide to the average person. Within the next 50 years, there's only going to be a few tracks left, if its not completely barred. At least we will always have Japan and Hong Kong though.

I'm younger. I don't know anyone who watches horse racing, nor even know anyone who knows anyone who watches horse racing. People my age don't bet on horse racing, they bet on loot crates and gacha video games. And with all of the sports channels/sites promoting betting on games, it's going to be harder and harder as the older folks pass away.

I don't know how you reverse the trend or if you even can, but I know as a casual person, it didn't make any real strides during the lockdown.

Basically, glorified skinner boxes.

(A Skinner box, also known as an operant conditioning chamber, is an enclosed apparatus that contains a bar or key that an animal can press or manipulate in order to obtain food or water as a type of reinforcement.) In the partial reinforcement schedules, some pigeons receive a pellet after they peck at the key five times. This is known as a fixed-ratio schedule. Pigeons in another group receive reinforcement after a random number of responses, which is known as a variable-ratio schedule. Still, more pigeons are given a pellet after a 10 minute period has elapsed. This is called a fixed-interval schedule. In the final group, pigeons are given reinforcement at random intervals of time.)

King ... creators of Candy Crush, employs Ph.D. Psychologists whose specialty is addiction. ;)


Really no comparison to horse racing. Horse racing not going to go away for same reason crossword puzzles don't. Some people like to do their studying and figuring out a good puzzle.

It takes knowledge and work to analyze horse racing data.

Horse racing will always exist in some form, but it's not going to be a mainstream thing again. Much like Wrestling, the Harlem Globetrotters, Roller Derby and so forth. They exist, they can be found, but their glory days are long gone.

The average age of people who gamble on it or go to races is old. Millenials and Gen Z are just not as interested and I don't see any way that can be changed.

The media also has it out for horse racing, which is another major hurdle.

Quiet Chris....the names change, but the song remains the same.

Shirley you jest~!
I am not sure about racing, but WRESTLING is thriving!
This is the new golden age.

WWE, AEW, Impact, NWA, ROH, NewJapan

Pretty much every day of the week, and they, too, doing it without fans.

Although one is more believable than the other....:rolleyes:

Wrestling's dead, man.

In 1983, 10 different promotions in the US drew 10,000 fans or more for an event. In 2020, with a lot more technology and 50 million new people, only 2 promotions could achieve it.

Raw's averaging under 2 million viewers, AEW and NXT combined can't hit 1.5 million. ROH has been dead since the MSG show and Impact is so low on the totem pole, it's not even worth discussing. I don't even think NWA has come close to making a profit yet. WWE's getting tons of money due to tv deals, but it's less people spending more.

New Japan is doing good, but Japan and Mexico are different beasts than the US. NJPW is still way down from its peak in the 90's and every name Japanese promotion has been sold to someone else in the last decade. With Mexico, it's part of the culture and the local arena's are a lot of the heart and soul of it, but CMLL is having to rely on foreign visitors which is not good at all.

Betting on the ponies will be around in one form or another, probably not what the previous generations are used to. You probably won't have those giant race tracks with capacities for 40,000+ on land in expensive urban areas. It might be be one strictly catered to online betting on an Indian reservation attached to other types of gaming utilizing cheap desert land that would otherwise be unused. Overseas racing is doing relatively OK, so I don't see them going away either.

This is pretty much spot on. Also, the median age of a WWE fan who watches their weekly programming is 55. Young people don't watch it.

Not sure what it has to do with horse racing except for the aging fanbase, but since I actually know lower-level people in the wrestling industry, they've been preaching for years about needing new fans. It's tough when all of the people in charge are age 50 and up and think the 1980s are current. The only thing that's saved WWE is the desperate need for live sports programming and the rapidly declining standard of what a "good" TV rating is. Without those TV contracts, they're done. With them, they're making many millions a year.

MMA is the reason why wrasslin' isn't as big as it used to be....why watch fake fighting when you can watch the real thing.

Horse racing has been around for 152 years (longer but i'm just counting the U.S. and formal racing).

Get back to me when loot crates and gacha video survives even the next decade.

Mostly everyone I know loves horse racing itself, the beauty of thoroughbreds, (there's an entire photographic art history featuring them), their breeding, the thrill of watching them run, being mostly outdoors, and the whole puzzle work of raking over the data. Ditto, standing on a riverbank, fishing all day. Even if you don't catch anything, the payoff is sheer enjoyment.

I've played those games you're talking about. It feels like robotic empty insect activity to me.

Believe it or not, there are still people whose attention span can "handle" chess, fishing, baseball, horseracing, crossword puzzles, and reading a long book in a hammock for a whole day. And not all of them are "old people". ;)

The fake stuff is more entertaining.
When can we bet on it? :headbanger::headbanger::headbanger:

(I see no difference in WWE that jocks grabbing speed horses out of the gate - FAKE racing)