Vintage DRFs Scanned Online

[rwwupl]

Isn`t it obvious what has happened over time concerning the take?

It is also obvious who has been running the game and the results.

Horsemen have dominated the State Boards and they scratch each others backs.

They left out the most important person of all, the customer.

"Sportsman"(No beancounters or people with special interests to the game)
must return to run the the game, or it will never recover.

John Hay Whitney warned of this and he was RIGHT!

[FenceBored]

Originally Posted by dansan

damn how old is C Borel im looking at results from april 1973 evangline race track and borels got a couple of winners

That's not Calvin. According to an old Ky Derby Media Guide Calvin was born in Nov. 1966 and didn't start riding until 1981. In April 1973 he'd have been six.

[Horseplayersbet.com]

Originally Posted by rwwupl

Isn`t it obvious what has happened over time concerning the take?

It is also obvious who has been running the game and the results.

Horsemen have dominated the State Boards and they scratch each others backs.

They left out the most important person of all, the customer.

"Sportsman"(No beancounters or people with special interests to the game)
must return to run the the game, or it will never recover.

John Hay Whitney warned of this and he was RIGHT!

I've got the blog piece up now and it takes the two old articles and puts them in one place:

http://cangamble.blogspot.com/2009/0...ufficient.html

[rwwupl]

Originally Posted by Horseplayersbet.com

I've got the blog piece up now and it takes the two old articles and puts them in one place:

http://cangamble.blogspot.com/2009/0...ufficient.html

Great Post, and thanks for the old movie.

rwwupl

[OTM Al]

Originally Posted by Horseplayersbet.com

What happened to the days of 15% track takeout? They vanished along with the people in the stands.

Since that is from 1967, the only bets available would be win, place and show and perhaps a daily double. 15% WPS is still pretty much the norm these days is it not?

[ryesteve]

Originally Posted by OTM Al

Since that is from 1967, the only bets available would be win, place and show and perhaps a daily double. 15% WPS is still pretty much the norm these days is it not?

That's the low, not the norm. And I also think it's beside the point. The other wagers don't justify a higher take... but perhaps we've become conditioned to think they do.

[OTM Al]

Higher take today on other wagers is beside the point. The other wagers did not exist then so there is no comparison for them. Look around '73 when those wagers started appearing if you want to make a point about them. My only point is that we can only compare conditons then to like conditions now if you want a meaningful comparison and link people missing in the stands to higher take levels. My guess is that higher take has little to nothing to do with people not in the stands opposed to certain years of the past.

[Horseplayersbet.com]

Originally Posted by OTM Al

Higher take today on other wagers is beside the point. The other wagers did not exist then so there is no comparison for them. Look around '73 when those wagers started appearing if you want to make a point about them. My only point is that we can only compare conditons then to like conditions now if you want a meaningful comparison and link people missing in the stands to higher take levels. My guess is that higher take has little to nothing to do with people not in the stands opposed to certain years of the past.

Exactors, though maybe just one or two a day and daily doubles were available in the 60's in Ontario. For some reason, a 14% takeout comes to mind. You could go to the track with a $30-$40 bankroll and last a few days.

However, you could only bet on 8 races a day. People often left with money in their pockets...all they had to do was cash one of the last three races to do that.

Throughout the 70's and 80's exactors, which now had higher takeouts were found in every race, triactors, with much larger takeouts were introduced, and takeouts for win even crept up.

Now you can bet 100 plus races a day if you so desire. It is a lot more difficult for someone with the equivalence of a $30 bankroll (which might be $150 today) to last half the card, since there are plenty of triactors and other exotics that erode bankrolls faster than ever before.

Seriously, if you want to know a major reason why people stopped going to the track....that is a biggie.

[OTM Al]

I have to dispute your reasoning. First, let's be clear. There is evidence that takeout is too high to represent optimal maximizing behavior for the tracks. Part of this is due to the governments having their hands out and part due to inertia by the tracks in not trying new things. However, a blunt arguement why your reasoning is wrong are state and national lotteries. 50%+ takeouts are not hurting them one bit. This is because people are only looking at potential payoffs and $60 vs $65 million isn't going to alter their behavior one bit. Therefore, optimizing behavior would likely indicate that there should be higher takes on bets that on average pay more.

Now let me address the meet of your argument about the $30 bankroll. Please explain to me why you could make it through the whole card in the past and have money left while today you couldn't make it through a like 8 races today? A 1 to 2% average difference on the same bets you could have made in 1967 vs those same bets today is not the reason you would get your bankroll chewed up. The reason it happens pople start betting too many races all over the place or multiple different wagers on individual races because they can. If the individual was betting in the same way he was back then, the results would be little different (ignoring the effects of greater information such as speed figs and other such innovations).

In fact, I would argue on average a 1% decrease in takeout would not result in a like increase in returns on many bets. Lower odds horses would still be driven down to near the same levels. I would have to believe, without seeing evidence otherwise, it would be the payoffs on the longer odds horses that would pay better. Lower take should not uniformly increase payoffs by the same % amounts across the board but should skew with proportionally greater amounts bet to the more likely winners or winning combinations. The most frequent winning bets would pay more, but not by the full amount.

No, it is not takeout that has emptied the stands. It is plentiful and available alternate forms of gambling. Back then, the "dumb" gamblers, the number players, the hunch bettors, call them what you will, had no other way to gamble than go to the track. Now in any corner store they can burn through their money on scratchoffs or lotto tickets. Now you can go and plant yourself in front of VLTs in many places. Even if you still prefer playing horses, you can stay home and bet from your computer or over the phone or go to a local OTB. Time is money as the saying goes so why spend an hour going back and forth to the track? The argument you have made is the same as saying that the loss in ratings for network TV channels is due to bad programming. The programming was crap then and still is now, the ratings have fallen because instead of 2 through 13, I now have 1 through 400+

[chickenhead]

However, a blunt arguement why your reasoning is wrong are state and national lotteries. 50%+ takeouts are not hurting them one bit. This is because people are only looking at potential payoffs and $60 vs $65 million isn't going to alter their behavior one bit.

This actually is not true in at least one sense. Takeout has a huge effect on lotteries. Primarily though they've found the most effective use of the extra prize dollars to be paying out more small winners, rather than just increasing the grand prize. Which if you wanted to relate back to racing would argue that reducing exotic takeouts to pay out more consos would pay for itself over time...because it has for lottos.

[DeanT]

That is true as Chick had brought up before. The MA state lottery dropped takeout from 60% to 31%. When they were at the high end they were just like the rest of the states in revenue. Now that they have chosen the low end they are number one in the nation in terms of lottery revenue.

Over time, the arguments about increases in competition, i.e. lotteries, scratch cards, sports betting, casino's, being racings problem are growing smaller and smaller. The UK has probably 100X more available outlets for betting dollars (with a bookmaking shop on every street corner plus 100% legal internet betting for all sports and games) yet somehow they blow away the US in per capita horse race wagering; $500 per person bet on racing in the UK to a paltry $40 in the US.

Of course you can make a bet on a chalk right now in the UK at anywhere between a 4% and 8% takeout. Sooner or later this has to be stop being considered a coincidence.

As time goes on, imo, the people who wrote in 1935 in this DRF piece that "if takeout is raised higher than 10% we are going to lose customers and have a tough time growing" are looking more and more correct. It is a shame that it took 74 years, and probably will take at least another decade to change takeouts for the better and grow racing again here in North America.

[OTM Al]

Originally Posted by DeanT

Over time, the arguments about increases in competition, i.e. lotteries, scratch cards, sports betting, casino's, being racings problem are growing smaller and smaller. The UK has probably 100X more available outlets for betting dollars (with a bookmaking shop on every street corner plus 100% legal internet betting for all sports and games) yet somehow they blow away the US in per capita horse race wagering; $500 per person bet on racing in the UK to a paltry $40 in the US.

All true Dean, but this isn't the argument that was being made. The claim was the decline in race track attendance was due to takeout changes and the argument presented did not, in my opinion, support that claim in any reasonable way.

To address your point though, horseracing appears in their regular media over there. Its all but vanished here. People don't see it so its not on their radar. Add to it the general sterotype of the horseplayer that our society has developed and clearly there are going to be differences in behavior. Over there, the Queen attends the races. Here what do we get? Bobby Flay?

[OTM Al]

Originally Posted by chickenhead

This actually is not true in at least one sense. Takeout has a huge effect on lotteries. Primarily though they've found the most effective use of the extra prize dollars to be paying out more small winners, rather than just increasing the grand prize. Which if you wanted to relate back to racing would argue that reducing exotic takeouts to pay out more consos would pay for itself over time...because it has for lottos.

Now this is a good idea and the kind of thing that should be studied. Nothing like a conso payment to make the loser feel like a winner. Just like the slots in Vegas, keep giving little payoffs and you keep the sucker, er player, hitting that button until its all gone and yet he still can talk about having won, for a while at least. I have to admit on the occasion I've bought a lotto ticket that pays a couple bucks in conso prize, what do I do but turn around and give it back for a new ticket. So in the end, it looks like you did lower the take, but in actuality, you've changed the game and thus in a way effectively increased it above the stated level.

[DeanT]

Sure Al, but is it the chicken or the egg?

All I know is we hear a lot of excuses on why wagering is poor here - culture, too much time between races, bad coffee prices and on and on. I believed a lot of it for awhile, and the tracks themselves seem to want us to.

But sooner or later we have to come to grips with a simple fact. Whereever on this earth that horse race wagering has grown and/or shown real resistance, whether it be in the UK, or Singapore or Hong Kong, or Australia, or whether it be at rebate shops, or betfair, or pinnaclesports.com........ there is only one common thread: Lower takeout.

Go Baby Go campaigns, Gene Simmons going to the Kentucky Derby, planting more pretty flowers, offering free hot dogs, hiring a Van Halen cover band, paying for a grade three race to be shown on TV, having ostrich races, and all the things done over the last ten years have resulted in lower handles.

Following what successful horse racing jurisdictions have done - lowering takeout - is something whose time has come. The excuses for not doing it are growing smaller and smaller, and fans are not believing them any longer.

[OTM Al]

Look back Dean, I'm not arguing that takeout here is not too high. Lowering it should help, but doing that alone is a temporary bandaid and not the be all end all. New fans must be generated as well and that's where perceptions must be changed. They need to draw those fans back that have no idea what takeout is, only that they love the sport.

Furthermore, there is something far more important in those countries you mention than the simple observation that they all have lower takes. They all have strong national governing bodies. The body can get the take adjusted as a whole and find that profit maximizing level.

What we have in the US makes that far more difficult because individual tracks are faced with a complicated game theoretic issue in which it is possible that the tracks all end up in a worse situation than they were before. Honestly I don't have the energy right now to detail the argument but its akin to what happens in a sports event when people figure if they leave early they can get out of the lot faster, but when everyone starts doing it, they end up worse off than they were before. Technical term is congestion externalities. Everyone would be better off if all the tracks could get together and work cooperative, but then that's called collusion, and that could cause problems too.

Look, its an important issue, no doubt, but its not the only issue.