Quote:
Originally Posted by Track Phantom
This is spot on. This whole discussion involving takeout is ridiculous. The only people that care about takeout are hard core players who play every day. I'll tell you this, 90% of the crowd at Churchill Downs on Derby Day couldn't even tell you what takeout means if you asked them.
Takeout is an important thing to keep in check but is only visible to those who are waist deep in this game.
There are three things keeping the masses away from this game. If you fix these three things, you have a chance:
1. Too complicated (betting and understanding the information)
2. Too much down time between races
3. Lack of High Def
Find a way to engage people in the betting and information aspect of the game and they may stick around to learn more about. Not sure how you do that but that is a major deterrent.
A 5 to 6 hour window of time for what amounts to roughly 15 minutes of actual excitement is a huge turnoff. Huge! We may be ok with it because we enjoy handicapping and structuring bets. Have you ever been to the track with someone that doesn't like that part of the game? They are bored into oblivion for 85% of their time at the track. That is what they remember when they leave (unless they hit something big).
The viewing experience is awful, for the most part. No HD, trees and structures in the way, same colored saddlecloths.
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On the "downtime" thing---the last time I was at a track everyone was betting about 10 different tracks at once. How much downtime was there when races were going off every two minutes around the country (obviously this applies to weekend afternoons only, but that's when 98% of the casual players would be at a track anyway)? If you're going to say that only the hardcore gamblers are betting that many tracks, maybe so, but you're not turning any casual player into the hardcore fan just by cutting time between races from 30 to 25 minutes so then there is no solution.
