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

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