It's on! The Official Boycott Keeneland Thread.

[Jeff P]

HANA Blog:
http://blog.horseplayersassociation....2017-meet.html

The question isn't whether or not Keeneland had a takeout increase and underperformed the market by a good -20%.

The question is whether or not anyone is listening.

--Jeff Platt, HANA President

-jp

.

[upthecreek]

Twitter

[Fager Fan]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

Mr. Elliston, you have this whole thing ass backwards. what you need to do is cut the purses in half and if you need to lower them even more and then lower the takeout and get rid of the breakage that gets fleeced out of all your customers. i promise you this will not only lead to increased field sizes and much better racing but also triple your handle without being to innovative. Mr. Elliston, this is easy math, nothing tough to this. you will also make so much more money from your parking, admissions, seats, and your concession stands that you will have to find more space to put all the people in the place that want to get in.

by raising the takeout you have sent this game into a death spiral.

Please do explain how cutting purses in half will lead to increased field sizes and better racing.

[Fager Fan]

Can someone please list all the times where decreased takeout resulted in a boom for that track/meet? Thanks.

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Please do explain how cutting purses in half will lead to increased field sizes and better racing.

great question and pretty easy to answer. by lowering purses in half it would help make the game more even where supertrainers will not be able to afford to wait months to run their horses, they will not be able to pick and chose the spots in the condition books. this in turn would give the smaller fry a chance to see some of the purse money that they haven't been able to get their hands on recently, that in turn will get more trainers into the game and new owners that get their friends involved. this is nothing but a win win for the track operator. it will probably help to get rid of lifetime condition claiming races at the big tracks in time like it used to be when the game was strong about 25 years ago.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Can someone please list all the times where increased takeout resulted in a boom for that track/meet? Thanks.

FTFY.

Blank


There you go.

[Jeff P]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Can someone please list all the times where decreased takeout resulted in a boom for that track/meet? Thanks.

How about Kentucky Downs?

Kentucky Downs Handle Update - PLAYERSBOYCOTT.org - October 12, 2017:
http://www.playersboycott.org/handleupdate10122017.html

Keeneland was down approximately $1.2 Million (-20%) yesterday.

But instead of Keeneland, let's take a look at Kentucky Downs.

For those of you who may not be aware, prior to their 2013 meet, Kentucky Downs approached HANA with the idea of lowering their exacta takeout from 19.00% to 18.25%. They asked if we would help promote the decrease in takeout by getting the word out to as many horseplayers as possible.

We thought it was a great idea and were happy to help.

So how did it work out?

Kentucky Downs saw record handle in each of the ensuing five years 2013-2014-2015-2016-2017 and has more than tripled their handle in that time.

Keep in mind that this came about by taking the novel approach of asking a horseplayers association to help them promote a three quarter point drop in exacta takeout.

-jp

.

[upthecreek]

Twitter

[Fager Fan]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

great question and pretty easy to answer. by lowering purses in half it would help make the game more even where supertrainers will not be able to afford to wait months to run their horses, they will not be able to pick and chose the spots in the condition books. this in turn would give the smaller fry a chance to see some of the purse money that they haven't been able to get their hands on recently, that in turn will get more trainers into the game and new owners that get their friends involved. this is nothing but a win win for the track operator. it will probably help to get rid of lifetime condition claiming races at the big tracks in time like it used to be when the game was strong about 25 years ago.

Um, no. That's not how it works. Cut the purses in half, and then you'd just see half the stables not make the pilgrimage to KEE, which by the way is rather a pain in the ass with all the shipping of horses and equipment and employees for just a 3 week meet. And it'd be harder for the smaller trainers to pay those expenses for no reason, considering the purses won't be better. They will just stay where they are before going straight to their Summer or Winter designation.

[Fager Fan]

Originally Posted by cj

FTFY.

Blank


There you go.

Isn't that sort of a problem in your arguments about lowering takeout?

[Poindexter]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Can someone please list all the times where decreased takeout resulted in a boom for that track/meet? Thanks.

Yes it is the same list of all the times any racing venue ever made a choice of trying to compete with other forms of gambling (8% wps, 10% exacta and 12% other exotics and eliminate rebates). The answer is that easy (getting it to work at this late stage-they have already chased away much of their market by now- would take some heavy duty marketing and education). It hasn't happened because racing it unwilling to try. They love there $20 burgers and they don't really care how long the lines are at In and Out, they are going to keep fidgeting the price from $20 on up until they find that sweet spot, which isn't sweet at all since they priced out most of the gambling market.

FF, re your last post to me, for the zillionth time, this is not about me (I love this game and will be playing it until it's very bitter end). This is about watching the best gambling game in existence deteriorate into irrelevance because it's decision makers don't understand that when you lose your monopoly, you can't continue to charge monopoly prices. There way of competing was/is to provide rebates to very big bettors which resulted in the very sharpest players alive taking full advantage. In turn these players have made the pools imbalanced. A big chunk of the pool is by sharps contributing very little to the takeout and a smaller chunk of the pool is by the public, who ends up contributing a lot to the takeout and losing absurd amounts of money until they move onto another gambling game. I even illustrated it above in this very thread. Eventually the sharks will eat up all the fish and they will have to start feeding on themselves. At that point they will leave the game and there will be no game. Now what exactly make you think there is anything sound in the current business model of racing? What makes you think that losing 25%, 30 % even up to 50% on the dollar with PA trifectas is going to motivate anybody new to the game to continue in this game. It is a business model guaranteed to fail.

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Um, no. That's not how it works. Cut the purses in half, and then you'd just see half the stables not make the pilgrimage to KEE, which by the way is rather a pain in the ass with all the shipping of horses and equipment and employees for just a 3 week meet. And it'd be harder for the smaller trainers to pay those expenses for no reason, considering the purses won't be better. They will just stay where they are before going straight to their Summer or Winter designation.

you see, now you got the whole point now, you will get plenty of new trainers that have horses already on the farms all within close proximity of Keeneland. if the guys with all the horses at other tracks don't want to come there it will be not only just fine but a major improvement in the racing there.

with all the money they gave away the racing was more boring than last year and the attendance supports that.

[Afleet]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Can someone please list all the times where decreased takeout resulted in a boom for that track/meet? Thanks.

Oaklawn Park lowered their ontrack take for one pool and that pool was up dramatically

[Afleet]

Originally Posted by Fager Fan

Can someone please list all the times where decreased takeout resulted in a boom for that track/meet? Thanks.

has increased takeout increased handle nationally over the last 20 years?

[Fager Fan]

Originally Posted by Afleet

has increased takeout increased handle nationally over the last 20 years?

Has it paid the track's bills?

You all say it's a no-brainer, except you have few to no examples of it working. Anyone have the list of tracks/meets who tried it, and the end result? To me, the no-brainer is that if it would result in more money for the track, then theyd do it.