Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I'm beginning to change my view on what the primary goal should be.
The prevailing wisdom has been that the industry needs to make the game more competitive with sports and other gambling games by lowering the take. On some level that's obviously true. I agree. However, the math and politics of that are tough. Also, making it more competitive with other forms of gambling is likely to attract more of the very kinds of teams we have also been complaining about. It's going to attract the most educated, math and computer savvy people out there. It may increase handle, but simultaneously make the pools even more efficient than they already are for a net gain of not much to players like us.
One of things I've been pointing out since NYC OTB closed was that a lot of the least sophisticated money has been leaving the sport for decades. First it started moving to lotteries and scratch offs, then casinos, then when NYC OTB closed some of those players dropped out, and now sports is getting many of the rest. Most of those players are not "take sensitive" (otherwise they wouldn't be playing lotteries). I'm not sure lowering the take gets many if any of them back. It's going to take a different kind of effort, but imo getting a lot of those players back may actually be more important to making the game more beatable than lowering the take a few percent.
Both would help, but we need to get the smaller bettors back too.
|
NYC OTB shut down because it was the only bookmaking business that despite the 5% vigorish STILL lost money. Why did it lose money? Because it was employing a bunch of politically connected hacks in suits making over $400k per year to do nothing. There were several levels of supervisors, managers, AVP's, VP's...It was so top heavy it was structured like an upside down pyramid.
NYC OTB shops, at least the ones in lower Manhattan, were filthy grungy crap holes that attracted smelly degenerate gamblers. There was on on Pearl St off Broadway , within a 5 minute walk of the NY Stock Exchange, that was a dump....
