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Originally Posted by Turfday
This was brought to my attention. I don't follow the handle on any circuit, let alone for comparative purposes. But I surely found this interesting and wanted to share it with the board.
Hollywood Park vs. Monmouth all sources handle for this past Saturday:
All sources betting handle at Hollywood Park was $9,560,260.
There were 67 horses that ran on the 9-race card
At Monmouth, they handled $9,357,444 (but I understand there's a problem with NY OTB and betting Monmouth). There were 126 horses on the 13-race Monmouth opening day Saturday card.
Considering both situations, I didn't think the above would be possible. Your commments?
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Big mutual pools are big because bigger bettors bet into them. And field size isn’t the most important factor to big bettors, pool size is.
Bigger bettors need big mutual pools to minimize the negative impact their wagers will have on the payoffs. Hollywood Park traditionally has much larger pools then Monmouth Park, so most of the big bettors played Hollywood (and Belmont)
Of course, Monmouth probably attracted some bigger bettors and/or their regular bigger bettor bet larger than normal in order to the the handle growth this weekend, as many regular horseplayer's were expecting Monmouth to have one of their best handle days ever.
As I stated before, racetracks are in a bit of a Catch-22 when it comes to pool sizes. In order to get big pools you need big bettors, but to get big bettors you need big pools.
It will be interesting to see the handle at Monmouth Park this Friday. Saturday handle was helped out by being opening day, and I am sure the handle on Sunday was helped out by the Pick 5 carryover.
