BEL Fall handle

[Robert Goren]

One thing is for sure, the "one day" fantasy site do more advertising in a week than horse racing does in 5 years. Or so it seems.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

Handle declines won't bother governments or racing if they have managed to up the taxes so that they now get a bigger percentage of a smaller handle

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Seabiscuit@AR

Handle declines won't bother governments or racing if they have managed to up the taxes so that they now get a bigger percentage of a smaller handle

Governments can get away with such maneuvers...but racetracks can't.

[riskman]

Here is a short article on the New York 5-cent fee that took effect 1/1/14 to bets made with out-of-state companies. http://www.drf.com/news/new-york-add... ADW companies

I am a NY resident that was affected by this insane legislation. Since 2002, I played NYRA tracks and a a few selected out of state tracks on a daily basis with a out of state ADW. I played about 300 races a month with a decent bankroll and a decent rebate. Since 1/1/14, I am down to about 10 bets a month with a NY based ADW. Basically, I am out of the game with the exception of a few bets on the weekends. I am sure that there were others like me who took a similiar path.

I have no interest at this time, to increase my participation in wagering on thorobreds. This incident on the 5-cent fee was the decision of the out of touch corrupt pols and do not at all the fault NYRA. I have no knowledge of NYRA's role in this fee scenario. This is the"unintended consequences" of a decision that was not thought through and if it was, shame on you.

[alydar]

Originally Posted by Jeff P

Yes. IMHO, sites such as Fan Duel, Draft Kings, etc. absolutely ARE winning market share away from horse racing.

Of course there are reasons for that:

Transaction costs are more favorable for the fantasy sports player vs. horse racing's ever higher takeout/ever higher signal fees/constant reductions to rebates, etc.

In fantasy sports the events being contested are seen in a more favorable light by the public from an integrity of the game standpoint. For example, with NFL games the public has access to constantly updated injury reports - whereas in horse racing that kind of info is hidden from the public.

As an aside, a long time horseplayer I know recently approached me about an interesting side project. He was putting together a fantasy sports syndicate and wanted to know if I would be interested in modeling fantasy sports data using logistic regression in R.

In my opinion fantasy sports is something that has real potential to rapidly accelerate racing's already downward handle trend.



-jp

.

I would add that the barriers to entry into the game are much lower. Everyone already knows and follows football. What percentage of the public knows anything about horse racing? The Breeders Cup is still a relatively obscure event to most.

[Robert Goren]

I don't think the fee raised much money. That was not the purpose. But here is where what money was raised went. Note that if I did my math right(always a real question these days), NYRA gets 10% and The NYRA horsemen get 10% horsemen. same as the state. I wonder how much money is going to actually collect for 2014 since almost the ADWs quit taking NY bettors.

"Under the law, 40 percent of the money provided by the fee will be distributed to the state’s five offtrack betting companies. Another 50 percent will go to the state’s racetracks, including the New York Racing Association, Finger Lakes, and the seven harness tracks operating in New York. The state will retain the remainder.

NYRA and Finger Lakes will receive 60 percent of the share that goes to racetracks, with the state’s harness tracks receiving 40 percent. It is unclear how that ratio was determined. According to the New York gaming commission report, account-wagering handle in 2011 on New York Thoroughbred races was $193 million, compared to $18 million on harness races, a more than 10-to-1 difference.

NYRA will retain “5/6ths” of the amount going to NYRA and Finger Lakes, according to the law. Forty percent of NYRA’s share will go toward purses, 20 percent will go toward breeders’ awards, and the remainder will be retained by NYRA."

http://www.drf.com/news/new-york-add...tate-companies

[lamboguy]

http://nypost.com/2014/11/20/meet-th...tasy-football/

[foregoforever]

Originally Posted by Robert Goren

http://www.drf.com/news/new-york-add...tate-companies

If memory serves, this article in the DRF was the first mention of the tax in the horseracing press ... well after it had been passed. There was a bit of grumbling about that at the time.

Since then, the final report on the takeout-sunset fiasco made it pretty clear that NYRA management wasn't very well informed about what was going on in the legislature. It makes me wonder if they even knew about the ADW tax before it was passed.