I am not as convinced as many people here about the guaranteed effectiveness of takeout reduction. I think it would require very complicated modeling to determine what the optimal takeout is, and it is probably higher on some races (the Triple Crown) and lower on others (the 1st at Aqueduct tomorrow), and I bet the tracks think that charging differential takeout would look bad.
But breakage, in 2017 with online wagering, is just stupid. The reason we needed breakage was so that mutuel clerks didn't have to deal with so much small change. There's no reason that they shouldn't pay off to the penny now, especially online.
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