Players continue to walk away from the game.

[classhandicapper]

Some of the jockey names on that list would have been risking massively more in future earnings from their career than they could possibly earn for stiffing an occasional horse. It’s hard for me to imagine a big name rider risking his career that way unless he happens to be a huge gambler (on sports for example), somehow got into a deep hole with the wrong people, and his only way out was to stiff horses for them. That feels more a like a bad movie script than a real thing. More likely is that someone was keying on races against a couple contenders and maybe a couple of hopeless longshots he hated and covering the rest.

[delfman]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

Some of the jockey names on that list would have been risking massively more in future earnings from their career than they could possibly earn for stiffing an occasional horse. It’s hard for me to imagine a big name rider risking his career that way unless he happens to be a huge gambler (on sports for example), somehow got into a deep hole with the wrong people, and his only way out was to stiff horses for them. That feels more a like a bad movie script than a real thing. More likely is that someone was keying on races against a couple contenders and maybe a couple of hopeless longshots he hated and covering the rest.

that list came from here
https://pastthewire.com/cheating-and...-horse-racing/


it is my understanding that every single one of those horses left out of the, I'm assuming exacta and or trifecta box's, were favorites and not hopeless longshots.


Yes, I was very surprised to see the likes of Angel Cordero Jr. and Eddie Maple listed.


But also, did you notice that two of those instances were losing bets. Which tells me that all of those jocks might not have been in on it.

[jay68802]

Teach new people what the game is about. Its not about your picks, it is about how you bet your picks.

You see every track has its handicappers and touts. They are giving or selling their picks for every race, on every card. This makes people think that this is what they should do. So they start by playing their picks in every race. Quick way to lose their money.

If you could start every new player looking at value, and not the handicapping, in the long run, the tracks would retain more customers.

[the little guy]

Originally Posted by jay68802

Teach new people what the game is about. Its not about your picks, it is about how you bet your picks.

You see every track has its handicappers and touts. They are giving or selling their picks for every race, on every card. This makes people think that this is what they should do. So they start by playing their picks in every race. Quick way to lose their money.

If you could start every new player looking at value, and not the handicapping, in the long run, the tracks would retain more customers.

You mean like I do most days?

[jay68802]

Originally Posted by the little guy

You mean like I do most days?

Its your job, and you do it well. Do you bet every pick you make in every race?

[the little guy]

Originally Posted by jay68802

Its your job, and you do it well. Do you bet every pick you make in every race?

Why would I and when have I ever suggested this? What are you insinuating?

[jay68802]

Originally Posted by the little guy

Why would I and when have I ever suggested this? What are you insinuating?

Not suggesting or insinuating anything. Just saying, IMO, that if new customers were educated on how to bet for profit first, instead of being sold on just picking winners, they might stay in the game longer.

[the little guy]

Originally Posted by jay68802

Not suggesting or insinuating anything. Just saying, IMO, that if new customers were educated on how to bet for profit first, instead of being sold on just picking winners, they might stay in the game longer.

Once again, I do this. Should we keep dancing in a circle?

[jay68802]

I posted my opinion on what I think tracks could do to retain customers. That is it.

Teach their customers to bet for profit, first.

What is wrong with that?

[JustRalph]

“Teach new players?”

There are very few new players. The younger generation has no interest in the sport. Or very little past the “big days” and they almost always lose money on those days. They walk away after a few years.

Football is thee betting sport nowadays. The places that cater to young people on NFL Sundays are the business to be in nowadays. I have a Brewingz right next to my restaurant. They live for NFL Sundays and College football Saturdays. They could care very little about the rest of the year. I cannot imagine trying to convert some of those guys to horse racing. It’s just the way it is…..today

https://www.brewingz.com/humble/

[westernmassbob]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

“Teach new players?”

There are very few new players. The younger generation has no interest in the sport. Or very little past the “big days” and they almost always lose money on those days. They walk away after a few years.

Football is thee betting sport nowadays. The places that cater to young people on NFL Sundays are the business to be in nowadays. I have a Brewingz right next to my restaurant. They live for NFL Sundays and College football Saturdays. They could care very little about the rest of the year. I cannot imagine trying to convert some of those guys to horse racing. It’s just the way it is…..today

https://www.brewingz.com/humble/

Agreed. What little new young players they do get aren’t watching 60 plus old men touting horses. They are paying attention to people like JK and Maggie. Don’t get me wrong there is a community (70 plus crowd) that follow the older handicappers .The older handicappers can’t seem to cultivate new fans though. That’s why you see a lot of tracks going to younger media relations. The mixing of young and old doesn’t seem to work either. Finally what new fan wants to hear that a handicapper is happy with a 20-25% success rate ? That would certainly scare me off if I didn’t know any better.

[the little guy]

Originally Posted by westernmassbob

Agreed. What little new young players they do get aren’t watching 60 plus old men touting horses. They are paying attention to people like JK and Maggie. Don’t get me wrong there is a community (70 plus crowd) that follow the older handicappers .The older handicappers can’t seem to cultivate new fans though. That’s why you see a lot of tracks going to younger media relations. The mixing of young and old doesn’t seem to work either. Finally what new fan wants to hear that a handicapper is happy with a 20-25% success rate ? That would certainly scare me off if I didn’t know any better.

Wrong as always.

[dilanesp]

I've said this before, and I'll focus on TVG rather than NYRA/tlg, both because I am more familiar with their product and also because I take tlg at his word about how he presents his picks, but there's a fundamental conflict between the business model of TVG/how betting is presented on television and better education of gamblers.

And that is that TVG basically has to require its hosts to promote lousy betting strategy. They present tickets on every pick 4 (and always within an arbitrary dollar limit), handicap almost every race on the air, etc. They do this for two reasons:

1. They obviously want to juice handle on TVG's platform and more diffusely at the tracks they do business with.

2. It would be boring to constantly tell viewers to pass races or to bet only small amounts.

And by the way, it isn't just TVG. Even on network television, the commentators NEVER say "this race is unbettable". They always present their picks.

But if you really do want viewers to have a good experience betting, this is just horrible. What you want is to teach people about good betting strategy, which involves passing a lot of situations where there is no value, waiting for good spots, analyzing whether the favorites in a pick 4 cycle render the bet unprofitable, being willing to throw more money on a pick 4 that is bettable, contains multiple opportunities for longshots, and big fields, etc. But the business model of racing on television requires that hosts talk a lot more about picking the winner than they do about how to bet.

[castaway01]

JustRalph's reply is totally accurate. It's been discussed ad nauseum, but the time for horse racing to try to grab a younger fanbase was 30 or 40 years ago, and they either wouldn't or couldn't. Now gambling is much more mainstream and "open" but the NFL and major sports are going to dominate it. That's it.

The content of the Westernmassbob post about the age of the handicappers, means less than nothing. Al Michaels is in his late 70s, did that hurt SNF ratings? No, the quality of the games and who is playing who many people watch, not the announcers (of course good announcers add to the experience).

Do TV handicappers picking chalk hurt the new player? Ummmmm...who knows? Andy often tries to beat the favorite and he talks about value. However, I get the TVG picks automatically when I use my NJ betting account, and it's almost all chalk. If you followed those picks, you'd lose, but here's reality: it's very hard to win at this game. To find someone who wants to be on TV, is personable or at least entertaining, can communicate well, can take the limited time between races to educate the public in finding value, AND is flat-bet profitable? That's about as common as Bigfoot riding a unicorn.

(I see the previous post covered some of the same ground, but I'll leave mine as is.)

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by delfman

that list came from here
https://pastthewire.com/cheating-and...-horse-racing/

What's wild about the Second Circuit opinion at the bottom of that post is that the FBI had everyone under surveillance, including the jockeys themselves and the bettors who were cashing in. Just like they did with Navarro and Servis.

I suspect that one thing that could do a LOT to clean up this sport is if federal law enforcement took more of an interest in it. A cluster of a few convictions would have a whole bunch of the people doping and/or stiffing horses running scared.