study shows race overlap not good for handle

[sour grapes]

Mckinsey study comes to obvious conclusion that running races at the same time is hurting handle especially on big race days.

[camourous]

Yea the 25 minutes between the races is way too short a time for people to get bets in on multiple races.

[sour grapes]

nyra board member Stuart Janney is quoted
"this is money that is available if we work together.We should be ashamed of
ourselves if we dont figure out a way to take advantage of this".

talk about an industry with head in the sand while constantly shooting themselves in the foot.

[cj]

The $400 million extra handle seems like a bit of a reach, but it can't hurt to try.

[lamboguy]

staggering post times may make some type of difference, but i don't think that is the long term answer to declining handles at race tracks these days.

years ago the races would be on top of each other, the purses were a lot less, there were no such thing as co-mingled simulcast pools and the race tracks all did more business, especially inflation adjusted

if it was me in charge of building up handle i would be paying more attention to finding more customers, not how you can bleed the customers out of their money faster.

[Andy Asaro]

IMO Gulfstream does it on purpose cuz they have the contract with TVG that mandates live race

[cj]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

staggering post times may make some type of difference, but i don't think that is the long term answer to declining handles at race tracks these days.

years ago the races would be on top of each other, the purses were a lot less, there were no such thing as co-mingled simulcast pools and the race tracks all did more business, especially inflation adjusted

if it was me in charge of building up handle i would be paying more attention to finding more customers, not how you can bleed the customers out of their money faster.

You aren't going to find more customers for a game taking 20% and rising on small, crappy fields most of the time.

[Robert Fischer]

How about being less cliquey and weird on big stakes days??


Everyone promote all the big races from all the tracks, instead of mostly pretending that they aren't happening?

[dilanesp]

When California first started north-south simulcasting in the late 1980's / early 1990's, they moved the Golden Gate and Bay Meadows post times to 15 and 45 after the hour and standardized Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar and 00 and 30, precisely because of this issue. This has been known for a long time.

[betovernetcapper]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

How about being less cliquey and weird on big stakes days??


Everyone promote all the big races from all the tracks, instead of mostly pretending that they aren't happening?

Great point. When they have these big races, the handle goes up for the day and then goes back to normal. People who just bet on the Breeders Cup or Derby or whatever are much like Catholics who go to church on Easter & Christmas. They are of some use but their annual visit wouldn't support the religion.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by betovernetcapper

Great point. When they have these big races, the handle goes up for the day and then goes back to normal. People who just bet on the Breeders Cup or Derby or whatever are much like Catholics who go to church on Easter & Christmas. They are of some use but their annual visit wouldn't support the religion.

All sports have these.

There are auto racing fans who only pay attention to the Indy 500 or the Daytona 500.

There are fans of the various Olympic sports-- especially track and field, figure skating, swimming, and gymnastics-- who only pay attention once every four years.

There are baseball fans who only tune in during October, and football fans who only watch the Super Bowl, and hockey fans who only watch the Stanley Cup.

ALL sports marketing is a balance between servicing day to day clientele and providing spectacles that will draw occasional customers.

The difference is some of the other sports have enough day to day fans to keep the thing going between the spectacles. We don't anymore.

[Tom]

study shows race overlap not good for handle

Duh.

Amazing the 21st century crap horse racing has to deal with:
timing races, not over-lapping races.....mind boggling problems.

Hey, racing executives.....here is an invention you might not have heard about yet......give it a looksee.

[rrpic6]

Mountaineer and Presque Isle, both owned by Eldorado continue to run on top of each other. Especially on Mondays and Tuesdays when the only competition is from harness tracks. Making it worse is they both use the same graphics font, along with Scioto, another Eldorado track. So less savvy OTB patrons (especially numbers players not using any programs) sometimes think Mountaineer and Presque Isle are one and the same. Every year Mountaineer's premier race, The West Virginia Derby, goes off EXACTLY when the Whitney at Saratoga does. How much $$ did that cost them?

RR

[1GCFAN]

I am not so sure the family that owns Eldorado knows much about racing. I remember a few years ago at Scioto the TV that I was watching as they loaded the gate for the Belmont Stakes switched to replays from Hooiser Park! Their latest mistake - letting the grandstand at Scioto get condemned!

I plan a trip to Presque Isle in a few weeks to see that operation.

[molson721]

study shows race overlap not good for handle

In other news, the sun will set tonight and will rise again tomorrow.