The entire HANA premise is upside down and misguided

[AskinHaskin]

It amuses this corner to no end to witness considerable dissension amid the loudest champions of HANA in the wake of HANA's habitual and collective apathy regarding the issues which are really bringing horse racing down in the 2000's.

(HANA as some sort of a labor union would be fine were you all working in some sort of a sweat shop in Guatamala, but in this equation you are the Kathie Lee Giffords!)

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

Charlie at this point HANA has to make an effort. You took the responsibility in 2010. The "it's not your job" after this Keeneland thing doesn't cut it IMO

Originally Posted by Charli125

I was simply explaining that HANA can't do the heavy lifting here.

("heavy lifting" ??? Is that what you people called those uncalled-for Canterbury touts on the dumb website that nobody ever visits in the first place?

That was a hilarious experiment from its inception and it surprises no one that the person behind it lost his job after the stupidity subsided.

But we never got to compare the raw data from one year to the next with misguided HANA touts in both spots. Surely the black eye dealt to racing, and to HANA with that stupidity and its predictable ending would have been far greater had that mighty "heavy lifting" on the seldom-seen website not been so Charles Atlas-like.)

Originally Posted by Dahoss9698

Why can't HANA do the heavy lifting? What else are you doing? What exactly is HANA doing for horseplayers right now?

So I'll ask again, what exactly are you doing for us?

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

1/2 truths. Not stepping up in Ca was a huge mistake. You're dancing to avoid the Keeneland disaster. You've been mailing it in the last two years and anyone who wants to look at the Blog can tell that or look at the thread about boycotting. You gave me a song and dance and fail to mention that I made the same contacts most of which were before you did. Don't make rthe mistake of bullshitting people to divert blame. You lied to me. You were in the boycott balls to the wall and out the next day. If you're not interested in stepping up then step down.

It's all in this thread. http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/s...boycott&page=2

Originally Posted by highnote

But I was a founding member of HANA and I am rooting for them to succeed. And I like reading my opinions on the internet.

HANA is kind of a toothless tiger.

(HANA is more near to a kitten in the box outside the grocery store ready to be given away)

Originally Posted by Jeff P

As to not boycotting earlier this year -- most of what you are saying is bullshit Andy.

I was up front with you. I told you I could not speak for HANA about boycotting until AFTER the board had voted.

After we had a verbal commitment from the CHRB and Santa Anita to get the rule changed there was no way the HANA Board was going to vote to boycott.

We decided as a board to take the CHRB and Santa Anita at their word and give them the chance to effect the rules change as promised.

I made that clear -- several times -- did I not?

As to the lack of activity on the HANA Blog -- I think you definitely have a point.

As for Keeneland -- The words total disaster don't begin to describe it.

-jp

.

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

There is a daily email trail to the list that contradicts half of what you say and over 160 people got the same emails. You also misled your board on some of the facts. You either were too lazy to do it or you took a dive. And it wasn't just the gelding issue so lets be clear about that. It was also about the jackpot scandals. And since when do you take the word of the CHRB that they may or may not do something in the future?

Buck up and organize a boycott against Keeneland. It's the least you can do.

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

You took them at their word all of a sudden when their word hasn't been worth 2 cents for the last 8 years? Right.

Look, if you want to salvage anything then you need to step up with HANA and boycott Keeneland with everything you've got.

Once and for all, takeout, by its very nature, can not possibly have one iota of anything to do with racing's decline over the past 30 years because it has been an effective constant, and not a variable during that time frame.

I can think of a place where takeout on like wagers has increased by the sum total of one-tenth of one percent over the past 45 years. That has zero to do with the decline of racing and its handle across the same window of time.

Racing's parimutuel pools and the players in them today know far less parity than they did in the 1970's and that, far more than anything ever cited by HANA (or anything HANA can collectively even understand), is the singular reason why racing is in its present death spiral.

This has zero to to with rebates and zero to do with takeout.

All of the contributing factors in this avalanche have been implemented by track management on behalf of all of you. Youuuuuuuu, collectively, caused all of this.


Just sit there, each of you, and fathom the (lets borrow a word from Pratt here) bullshit that is any of you complaining on one hand about some wholly irrelevant takeout increase at Keeneland (or wherever). That while on the other hand engaging in increasing the effective takeout on the novices who used to arrive in droves, but who got tired of your collective impacts and who only show up today when a company function or a tired grandfather draws them to the track once a year.

This doesn't/can't occur in slots... this doesn't/can't occur in roulette... this doesn't/can't occur in the state lottery... and those are things the novices are playing now, in case you'd not noticed.

So the central problem here is the collective you.


The solution is certainly not to afford you b.s. artists still greater concessions (Keeneland might as well put more of the money in their own pockets or those of horsemen... so as to at least help one side of their books).







The first and most simple steps needed to correct this decades-long result of poor track management and terrible decision-making involve helping the novices begin to reverse the deadly chokehold that you the regular horseplayers have put upon racing's revenue stream.


When as an industry racing continues to direct nearly all of its marketing and all of its handouts to a one-percent sliver of its audience and at the direct expense of all others (horsemen, management themselves, and certainly the 98% of the fan base being alienated by the HANA crowd) then it should be crystal clear for the logical minds among us that the giant imbalance will continue to eat-away at racing's infrastructure until nothing remains.

You have collectively been causing this yourselves, for decades now, and this habitual drinking of the HANA Kool Aid is going to solve nothing for anyone involved.

The last thing industry leaders should do in the present is permit you and your ilk to further gnaw-off their revenue arms. (at least some of them can reach retirement age while staving you off in the near term - what will the collective you gain from all of this?)


Many high school math teachers could probably analyze the big equation that is parimutuel horse racing in North America and explain as much to the open-minded among you.


You can not be any part of the solution until such time as you cease to be the problems.

[JustRalph]

Clear as mud

[CincyHorseplayer]

I don't mind playing in a pool of sharks. But I'm the customer. They owe me. I am the revenue stream.

[acorn54]

let me throw a wrench in this conversation. it is 330 am and i am enjoying a very interesting book on the culture and gambling behavior in hong kong. the author mentioned that happy valley take out for win bets is 18%, yet horseracing is hugely popular there. go figure.

[highnote]

WOW! HANA must have a lot of power if it is causing this many problems in the industry!!

Originally Posted by AskinHaskin

It amuses this corner to no end to witness considerable dissension amid the loudest champions of HANA in the wake of HANA's habitual and collective apathy regarding the issues which are really bringing horse racing down in the 2000's.

(HANA as some sort of a labor union would be fine were you all working in some sort of a sweat shop in Guatamala, but in this equation you are the Kathie Lee Giffords!)





("heavy lifting" ??? Is that what you people called those uncalled-for Canterbury touts on the dumb website that nobody ever visits in the first place?

That was a hilarious experiment from its inception and it surprises no one that the person behind it lost his job after the stupidity subsided.

But we never got to compare the raw data from one year to the next with misguided HANA touts in both spots. Surely the black eye dealt to racing, and to HANA with that stupidity and its predictable ending would have been far greater had that mighty "heavy lifting" on the seldom-seen website not been so Charles Atlas-like.)












(HANA is more near to a kitten in the box outside the grocery store ready to be given away)















Once and for all, takeout, by its very nature, can not possibly have one iota of anything to do with racing's decline over the past 30 years because it has been an effective constant, and not a variable during that time frame.

I can think of a place where takeout on like wagers has increased by the sum total of one-tenth of one percent over the past 45 years. That has zero to do with the decline of racing and its handle across the same window of time.

Racing's parimutuel pools and the players in them today know far less parity than they did in the 1970's and that, far more than anything ever cited by HANA (or anything HANA can collectively even understand), is the singular reason why racing is in its present death spiral.

This has zero to to with rebates and zero to do with takeout.

All of the contributing factors in this avalanche have been implemented by track management on behalf of all of you. Youuuuuuuu, collectively, caused all of this.


Just sit there, each of you, and fathom the (lets borrow a word from Pratt here) bullshit that is any of you complaining on one hand about some wholly irrelevant takeout increase at Keeneland (or wherever). That while on the other hand engaging in increasing the effective takeout on the novices who used to arrive in droves, but who got tired of your collective impacts and who only show up today when a company function or a tired grandfather draws them to the track once a year.

This doesn't/can't occur in slots... this doesn't/can't occur in roulette... this doesn't/can't occur in the state lottery... and those are things the novices are playing now, in case you'd not noticed.

So the central problem here is the collective you.


The solution is certainly not to afford you b.s. artists still greater concessions (Keeneland might as well put more of the money in their own pockets or those of horsemen... so as to at least help one side of their books).







The first and most simple steps needed to correct this decades-long result of poor track management and terrible decision-making involve helping the novices begin to reverse the deadly chokehold that you the regular horseplayers have put upon racing's revenue stream.


When as an industry racing continues to direct nearly all of its marketing and all of its handouts to a one-percent sliver of its audience and at the direct expense of all others (horsemen, management themselves, and certainly the 98% of the fan base being alienated by the HANA crowd) then it should be crystal clear for the logical minds among us that the giant imbalance will continue to eat-away at racing's infrastructure until nothing remains.

You have collectively been causing this yourselves, for decades now, and this habitual drinking of the HANA Kool Aid is going to solve nothing for anyone involved.

The last thing industry leaders should do in the present is permit you and your ilk to further gnaw-off their revenue arms. (at least some of them can reach retirement age while staving you off in the near term - what will the collective you gain from all of this?)


Many high school math teachers could probably analyze the big equation that is parimutuel horse racing in North America and explain as much to the open-minded among you.


You can not be any part of the solution until such time as you cease to be the problems.

[MonmouthParkJoe]

Well this was interesting to wake up to

[Andy Asaro]

HANA did great work. My beef is the last two years.

Other than that it's a great thread to ignore.

[Track Phantom]

Terse, incoherent, passive-aggressive drivel.

[castaway01]

You sort of went off the rails when you started typing, but the whole "takeout is a constant" is insane, isn't it? Takeout's existence has been constant but the percentage sure hasn't been. It's like doubling sales tax and saying it has no effect on sales because sales tax is a constant.

The rest of it will surely make more sense after I've rammed my head into a wall a few times.

[Afleet]

Originally Posted by Track Phantom

Terse, incoherent, passive-aggressive drivel.

I have to agree and I like Haskin

[Redboard]

My only problem with HANA is that they do not call for bans, merely state things like "we polled our members and ###% feel that they aren't going to play this bet, or track, because of the rate hike."
They should be more proactive and call for bans and have a "Banned list" on their site. The bans don't have to be forever, that won't work. For example, "Because of Keenlands new rake hikes, we are calling for our members to not play that track for one year." Keenland would be added to their banned list(at least the bets that were hiked) and there would be a date next to it when that ban would expire.
If these tracks could see only get a temporary dip in their handle because of hikes, it might cause them to reconsider.
The way things are, I doubt if Keenland will see anything at all.

[Dave Schwartz]

My opinion is that HANA, as an organization, does what they can do with a relatively tiny following and no real power.

I really do not know how many COMMITTED followers they have but I am pretty sure it isn't even close to enough. This is especially true in an industry where it is the dollars wagered that counts.

1. How many members are there?

2. What does the average HANA member wager? More specifically, how much is the total wagering CONTROLLED by HANA?

And, what I mean by "control" is the amount wagered by that portion of the membership who will actually stop wagering to allow HANA to show its strength.

... total wagering on U.S. races rising from $10.672 billion in 2015 to $10.735 billion in 2016 (+0.58%)...

What percentage of that $10.735b does HANA "control" to the extent that if it called for a boycott on the industry the tracks would actually feel it?


I have no idea, but my guess would be that it would be a tiny percent. Perhaps 1% or 2% at most.

Until HANA gets control of a significant percentage of the dollars wagered, their edicts just have no impact whatsoever.


Please understand that this is not meant as derogatory towards HANA. What they are doing is way more than anyone else is doing.

Remember that this is an industry that believes the "customer" in racing is the person who buys race horses. That leaves the bettor as someone who JUST SHOWS UP with no say.

Is this a myopic point of view? Of course it is. Worse, it is destroying the industry.

Just my opinion.

Dave Schwartz

[BreadandButter]

Originally Posted by acorn54

let me throw a wrench in this conversation. it is 330 am and i am enjoying a very interesting book on the culture and gambling behavior in hong kong. the author mentioned that happy valley take out for win bets is 18%, yet horseracing is hugely popular there. go figure.

What is the name of the book and author?

[AltonKelsey]

Forget the OTHER guy. If everyone that cares about it simply refuses to bet KEE, then you might see an impact. You don't need HANA


And if that isn't enough, then go fight some other battle, this one is lost.

[acorn54]

Originally Posted by BreadandButter

What is the name of the book and author?

i was waiting for someone to ask. it was written by a member of mr. peter benter's group. a mr wong whose credentials include, being a award winner of the asian-pacific mathematics olympiad. during the saars virus that closed down asian racing for two years he spent his time writing a book called "precision". he explains the quantifying of data in the factors of horse race analysis, in as easy to understand format, that implementation of statistics and probabilities can be.