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Old 01-23-2019, 09:23 AM   #1
Hambletonian
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And Thus it Begins

It'e been announced that the slots operation at Monticello Raceway is coming to a close. Not a huge surprise, since the standalone casino down the road, owned by the same folks, has apparently been losing $10m a month. Take at the Resorts World Casino have stayed in the $100-150 a day per machine range, and the hope is that if you add the $50-100 a day being handled at the Raceway, you may approach the magical $200 a day per machine threshold.

Now, if you have ever seen the crowd at the machines at Monticello Raceway, you may wonder if this is the type of customer you want at your fancy casino. But they are probably desperate at this time. Who would have ever thunk that building a casino in a downtrodden area several hours from the nearest city would run into trouble? Good thing the majority stockholder is not hurting for cash.

I believe this is going to be a trend going forward. Many states have extracted huge fees for folks to open stand alone casinos, and in NY that has not worked well at all. There simply is too much competition, and the racinos have far less operating costs than the casinos do.

Monticello was easy, as it was a case of shared ownership. And I would not bet that there will be racing there in 2020. But i imagine that the standalones will look to eliminate competition in order to improve their numbers.

So i wouldn't be shocked if Batavia, Buffalo, Monticello and Vernon are closed in the next few years. Saratoga Raceway should be in the clear, and I would imagine that Yonkers will end racing the moment they can to maximize use of the property.

I was a track collector so I hate to see any track close, but I think we can all agree that there is too much racing for the dwindling population of horses. There is no track in America where slots improved the quality of racing, we just now pay maidens more than stakes horses in some cases. And while owners, trainers and jockeys have made out great, the customer base is dwindling. If it were not for the whales, who knows where overall handle will sit. And I am going to go out on a limb and say that some of the guys are going to migrate to sports betting. Mobile betting now offers folks the opportunity to bet on 50-100 options per game in many cases, as well as in play, from anywhere, And it would seem that sharp folks will ramp up their efforts to beat the algorithms as time goes on.
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Old 01-23-2019, 11:49 AM   #2
AstrosFan
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What a brilliant post. At one point I loved racing, but racing doesn’t even love itself anymore. We will see only a few major tracks remain in the next decade and when you factor in sports wagering, the handle for pari mutuel wagering under its current model cannot survive. OTBs started hurting the ontrack game decades ago and with online betting, there is no real need for the serious player to go to the track, we know the whales aren’t.
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Old 01-23-2019, 12:35 PM   #3
HalvOnHorseracing
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Ultimately I think 20-22 tracks will survive. That number might create better balance between horses available and races run. Bigger fields, better payoffs.
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Old 01-23-2019, 01:13 PM   #4
ultracapper
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All assuming breeding operations don't start shutting down. There may come a time when 95% of the TBs in America will come directly from Kentucky. We in Washington state watched firsthand what the closing of a racetrack does to the state's breeding operation. There actually used to be farms all around the old Longacres racetrack in what is called the Kent Valley. As soon as the Alhadeff's took Boeing's money, a lot of the breeders in the Kent Valley took the developer's money. Washington state has around 300 live births a year now. Maybe 350. If Emerald Downs were to close, they aren't going to breed horses here to run in other states. They'll send the good sires to whoever wants them, and basically pension the rest. I'd guess most states facing that scenario would end up playing out the same way.

Anybody that loves horse racing should be scared to death if Santa Anita were to close. The ramifications would shake the industry to it's foundations.
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