Quote:
Originally Posted by thaskalos
1. I don't think that there are many horseplayers out there who have quit the horses so they can play scratch off lottery tickets. And the lotto is an entirely different ballgame. I too play the lotto once in a long while, whenever I have a peculiar dream.
2. I don't know when the last time was that you entered an actual OTB. I go to those places once in a while, and they are virtual ghost towns. The few people who are there are just seeking shelter from the cold. And most of the OTBs have closed down altogether. When people play a gambling game and then they stop, they stop for some good reason... and you aren't going to succeed in bringing them back by way of some clever marketing maneuver. The casual horseplayer has been abandoning this game in droves...and the horse racing industry has never seemed particularly bothered by this development. All they have done is cut a deal with the computer groups, so the mega-betting computer guys can pick up the slack. No concern at all has been given for the plight of the "average" horseplayer. And you now think that this industry will finally make an effort to "recapture that segment of the market"?
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I think you are missing my point. It's not about salvaging OTBs. There's probably still a place for a handful of simulcast centers in some areas, but that model is mostly obsolete. It's about trying to bring back some of those former "OTB type" bettors. Some of them lose the same amount or more gambling on other things now. In the case of scratch offs they lose it even faster.
We need some imaginative marketing.
It's not just about the track take. We need less efficient pools to give us all a better chance of profit or the game will eventually become obsolete.
