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Originally Posted by AstrosFan
That is grossly incorrect regarding what Nader "thinks"...
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Rightly or wrongly the presentation by Bill Nader at the Symposium in AZ this past December (mentioned in the article below) is one of the many things we were talking about on the phone yesterday...
By Matt Hegarty
12/05/2017 3:25PM
Symposium panel urges lower takeouts:
http://www.drf.com/news/symposium-pa...lower-takeouts
--this:
Quote:
"It has to start with the industry leaders," said Bill Nader, a former chief operating officer of the New York Racing Association who was also the executive director of racing at the Hong Kong Jockey Club for eight years, ending in 2016. "And they have to make a big leap. This will not work in isolation."
In a larger context, the comments from the panelists could be viewed as an unusually sharp rebuke to Keeneland, the central Kentucky racetrack that drew widespread criticism from the horseplaying community earlier this year when it raised the takeout rates for its bets for the fall meet. All three panelists cited the Keeneland decision while making their remarks, with several taking particular issue with Keeneland’s justification of needing more revenue from wagering to boost purses.
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--and this:
Quote:
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To optimize the impacts of churn, Gramm and the other two advocates for lower takeout rates said that racetracks needed to prioritize single-race bets such as win, place, show, exacta, and trifecta for the takeout reductions. They also claimed that lowering or maintaining low takeout rates for multi-race wagers like the pick 4 and pick 5, along with jackpot-style bets that only pay out if there is a single winner, is counter-productive, contradicting a handful of recent decisions by racetracks. (Keeneland raised all of its takeout rates with the exception of the pick 5, which it lowered.)
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Imo, racing faces many different issues/challenges.
Imo, empty grandstands are certainly one of those challenges.
But so is ever higher takeout.
And promotion of new jackpot wagers at insanely high net effective takeout rates that result in ever smaller churn.
And odds that change after the bell.
And drugs.
And regulators who are afraid to hand out penalties with teeth.
And horses that barely make six starts per year (when they used to make ten to twelve.)
Imo - all of the above (and more) lead to empty grandstands. And ever shrinking handle numbers.
We have to start somewhere.
-jp
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