What if there were no ADWs

[Sailwolf]

Originally Posted by MONEY

That is exactly my problem. When I go to the track, I take a list of the bets that I would like to bet, and enough money to cover my list. Then I shoot the breeze with my buddys and stick to my list of bets. In fact they make fun of me because I won't make extra bets or even look at their programs.
When I used to bet online or over the phone, every time I had nothing to do I would start looking for races to bet and would eventually lose all of my money, because the ability to make a bet was so easily accessible.

MONEY

I am the complete opposite. When I go to the track, there is nothing to do except to bet. When I am at home, I only play the "good bets". If there are no good bets, I get up and do something else.

[GaryG]

I would move to Florida and do what I did for most of my adult life...bet at the track.

[BillW]

I decided long ago that due to the distractions at the track, I would limit my play to recreation ($2/$5 stuff) and make it a social event to hang out with the guys. I keep the serious play at home.

[Pell Mell]

Being hundreds of mile from any track I have no choice but to bet online. There are a couple of things I don't like about ADW and one is a privacy concern. Who has access to my account? Every bet I make is recorded and in the case of having to use the phone I have to give my acct.# and password. Suppose your winning a ton of money, can the operator see your bets and maybe use them? Can the IRS ever acces your account? I like the ability to place a bet on a machine at the track and no one knows what I bet and when I want to cash out I just get a voucher and cash that. Maybe I'm old school but I just don't like my business to be available to anyone.

[Wiley]

No live TB racing near me, OTB five miles away but with life's time constraints could only see me going there on big race days, looking at once every month or so without ADW's. With online over the years I play once or twice a week so I chose a 75% decrease. Recently, with the lack of access for me to some of my favorite tracks and not wanting to open more than one online account, my play has dropped considerably, Ellis only on occasion over the last two months.

[ratpack]

Originally Posted by DJofSD

I live in California. I find the ADW situation confusing. I want to be able to wager on any track but without having to maintain multiple accounts. And even if I did hassle with multiple accounts, there's no assurance that all of the tracks would be offered.

That is another problem. They claim they want to get more people to attend the track live but you can bet more races sitting at home. Less races are offered when you attend the races live, at least in California.

[DJofSD]

Maybe I'm old school but I just don't like my business to be available to anyone.

Ditto all of the above.

[DJofSD]

That is another problem. They claim they want to get more people to attend the track live but you can bet more races sitting at home. Less races are offered when you attend the races live, at least in California.

Yes, the limit of 22 races total that can be "imported" still exists. I've never really understood why the limit exists and in whose best interest it is to put a ceiling on the size of the wagering menu.

If the State of California would open up, I'd probably play more races. But as it is now, I only will drive to a facility when I have at least three solid plays. And with the state of affairs with CA racing, that means some times I'm looking at races out of state.

[NoCal Boy]

Let's not kid ourselves. No ADW means the death of racing as we know of it at present. We can debate it ad nauseum, but the end result is the death of most harness tracks and most mid to lower level flat tracks.

ADW keeps people interested in racing that otherwise might be inclined to go elsewhere. NO ADW means no TVG or HRTV. No races on TV as it would serve little purposeto place them on TV.

This is why the racing industry fights so hard to keep ADW and is so powerful in Congress. Racing means tens of thousands of jobs and economic benefits that go far beyond the races itself. There will alwys be noice from the anti-gambling zealots, but the reality is ADW is here to stay as far as I am concerned.

If you ever want to see legalized online poker in the US, then try to eliminate ADW on racing and have the racing industry join forces with the poker people and use their influence in Congress. By keeping ADW legal in the US, the racing industry has no incentive to allow online poker. But screw with ADW, and they will use their clout to join forces toward legalizing poker as well.

Just my opinion, but I feel very comfortable with it.

[Bruddah]

The Horse Racing Industry forms their own ADW. Each track would have the choice of opting in or out. For lack of a better name call it Industry ADW or IADW. Each track would pay the IADW a determined percentage for carrying it's signal. (say 2% for arguments sake) The IADW now has a menu of tracks signals available for import. The member tracks could select from this menu, which meets they would want to import. The member track would pay 2% on revenues (bets) received. The IADW expenses would be covered by all member tracks based on a annual cost sharing formula. i.e. Larger tracks and meets, receiving the most in IADW revenues, would pay a proportionally higher cost of supporting the IADW than smaller IADW members.

Effectively, the middleman has been eliminated. The Horse Racing Industry controls it's own product, and the Industry becomes more united. To me, this is a no-brainer.

However Magna and Churchill have the same idea, but want to say 'screw the others in the Industry, we will do it ourselves'. Because, we control the biggest and most tracks. (Greed)

Just a note to all. The present business models of both groups are seriously flawed. The only way for Horse Racing to survive is to adopt a business plan which is best for the Industry. The old adage of United we stand or together we fall applies to this situation.

[NoCal Boy]

Your plan would never pass anti-trust scrutiny as the cat has already been let out of the bag for ADW.

However, you get to roughly the same result by tracks mandating open access to all ADW's. This will result in a competitive, free enterprise system will there will be winners and losers based on ability to compete.

Tracknet in its mission staements make sense. Their execution was horrible, by design or not. I still believe TVG will strike a deal with TrackNet and then all ADW's will compete on roughly level ground. There are far too many independent tracks to allow TrackNet to dictate the industry, and TVG is losing exclusivities and will have to come along at some point.

[Bruddah]

and therefore would pass the test. Also, your plan is not the same by distributing the signal because there are still several middle men. Each taking or wanting varying cuts. You end up with what you have today. A real cluster ***k.

[NoCal Boy]

Where is the cluster **** if all ADW's have access to all product at a price agreeable to buyer and sender?

There are serious antitrust issues, but it will never come to pass so no reason to get into it right now.

We all agree the system today with limited access to content is not working. TrackNet should have access to TVG content and TVG/Youbet/PTC should have access to Tracknet content. All subject to mutually agreeable rates.

[DeanT]

Start NAhorsebetting.com: It has every track in North America; start that with a betting exchange with 4% rakes to get market traders into racing, like betfair has brought them in. Let people bet into the pool also, but keep higher rakes on exotics (and all bets), but give huge rebates to worldbet.com members. Leaving the rakes high for people who are into the racing game for entertainment and dont care about such things.

Offer it to every state and province in North America. Offer replays, free historical data, and free PP's to members, just like betfair does.

Then watch handle go up.

OK, I can dream cant I?