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Bravo Jeff, Hall of fame post, one of the best i've ever read here.
If the newbie is betting with "12 zeros" than the rebate player is still betting with "6 zeros" so even with a large rebate, he or she is still up against it in a huge way.
The obvious problem with the game is the pricing. While horse trainers, jockeys and owners need to have some sort of expectation that if they're really good at what they do, they'll make money, the horse player is sitting under the crushing weight of being largely responsible to pay the salaries of the trainers and jocks and profits for the Jim Rome's of the world (who have turned this game into something pretty simple these days) that's a LOT to ask. And then, you have this thing in NY where they're hitting up the state's residents for an extra 5%, ya know, just for shits and giggles.
Its a hard game to sell when the gambling part of it is just for "entertainment purposes only" and its not priced for anyone to have a realistic shot at winning no matter how good you are.
Also, as Gus has pointed out numerous times, the game suffers from a huge integrity problem and if you, as a bettor, are going to be asked to pay a huge price to bet, you NEED to know the game is iron clad honest. You can't play into a 20 or 25% takeout knowing that some rich trainers and jockeys (and poor ones too) are essentially controlling enough of the results and taking advantage of those results thru the betting windows (which essentially makes the effective takeout even higher).
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