Quote:
Originally Posted by highnote
One of the reasons I was a founding member of HANA was because I got tired of seeing and experiencing first hand the way horseplayers were being treated by the management of racetracks. Horseplayers had always been taken for granted because racetracks had a monopoly on gambling for many years.
Unfortunately, racetracks never adapted to the reality of the boom of other types of gambling that was becoming available. Racetrack management continued to treat horseplayers the way they always had -- like their personal cash cows to be milked for every penny in their pockets -- literally. #breakage
An analogy: About 25 or 30 years ago discount stock brokerage firms started popping up. One big full-service brokerage firm complained to an IBM executive who was consulting to them that the discounters were killing their business. The big firms asked what they should do. The executive said he didn't have a solution, but that they had better figure it out or else they will be out of business. Some of them have disappeared -- just like the racetracks.
Young people are not interested in going to the races. They have cell phones and are in constant contact with their friends. They are not going to sit down with a racing form and try to handicap a race. Let's face it, handicapping is pretty boring and tedious for most people. Casual gamblers aren't going to get on online account to just to bet on the color of a jockey's silks. They'd rather buy a lottery ticket or go to the nearest casino and play any one of the myriad of games that can more quickly jump start their endorphin buzz.
HANA did call for a boycott of California racing one year, which seemed like a good thing for horseplayers. It seemed at first the boycott worked, but it kind of fizzled out. It's really hard to maintain momentum. For the most part, HANA has been somewhat of a toothless tiger. They've never really played hardball and playing hard is what it takes to change a culture. Changing a culture is really, really, hard.
If HANA is serious then they need to take serious measures. Talk is cheap. The first place to start is to read "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky. Now there's a guy who knew how to get results!
Other than personally boycotting tracks with high takeouts there is not much an individual horseplayer can do. However, for horseplayers serious about pushing the industry to change; joining HANA to get involved in kicking some racing industry managers in the butt to get them to move in a more favorable direction for horseplayers could be a whole lot of fun. But is it worth it? Only you can decide.
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this is a different story from so. cal. the only ones players that got hurt by the takeout hike was the ones that didn't get rebates, this time around they are targeting the rebate players. they aren't going to play that place. they will be NYRA or someplace else. you don't even need to form a boycott on this one.
