You have all kinds of little hurdles and a few big ones.

Easily the biggest problem though is that the sport is viewed as a suckers game that can't be beaten - a game played almost solely by degenerates and addicts.

Once someone gets past that and decides they want to give the game a shot - they find out how very intimidating the sports is to learn. It becomes obvious that some of the people sold to the public as experts on the sport clearly aren't exactly serious handicappers ... I think a lot of people conclude that the sport is all about betting, at a high rake, on inconsistant animals that run in circles with stupid little men on them.

A lot of people will still think messing around and doing that from time to time is pretty fun .. but it's not something they'll dive into like lame-ass poker.

The hottest thing now right here is scratch off tickets - some fool with rotten teeth in his early 20's hits for seven figures on a scratch off ticket .. and you can't go into a Country Fair without seeing lines five deep at the stupid scratch off vending machine.

Yes, lower the take out needs to be done.

Horse racing is a skill game much like poker.

The new players that get involved with poker have a chance to practice and polish thier game before they risk thier money and horse racing doesn't offer a way to gain experiance in a quick informal setting like poker.

We all know that to win at horse racing you have to spend time with a race, i.e. ThroGraph, Sheets, Form and watching past performances and today the little Gobbers dont want to wait or work for anything so they pull the handle on a slot machine and some find poker a challenge. Few are willing to work at handicapping and most don't want be a fool and risk thier money when they don't have a clue for 5/2 or 4/1.

Horse racing will never be as accessible as poker and will never be nearly as beatable.

I always diss Poker - but I've never really given playing it that much of a shot.

Smoke from cigs and cigars drive me absolutely nuts - I don't know if i'm allergic to it or what... but nothing is nastier and more certain to give me a headache.

Experiment a little with the takeout, have ONE Saturday a month at MAJOR tracks where takeout on ALL wagers is reduced to 5% (Not Turfway on a single PK4 to 4% has to be for all wagers). See what it does to handle. Then you will have your answer to the effect takeout has on the product. If gamblers think they are getting a fair shake they'll play, if they are being gouged 15%-26%+ on every wager they are going to look for a better game. IT IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.

Fix the assinine IRS W-2G reporting requirements...$600+ (300-1) has been around for how long? It's been the same for the 30 years I've been playing. How come inflation effects everything else, but this reporting requirement never changes? If they don't want to change it, make the base bet $.10 for all exotics. Since the IRS doesn't allow you to net gains & losses throughout the year, but instead requires you to report all gains and then itemize losses, then everything should be done from a racetrack perspective to help the player avoid W-2G's. This is not done and any serious player will go offshore or stop playing.

Fix the breakage, with dime super's being offered and the age of computerized/self service wagering this laughable as to why this isn't corrected.

Host tracks have been the BC committee's patsies. The BC essentially leases the track for the day (for free? I haven't seen any word of the BC paying) and takes the track's share of the take-out. Host tracks have often taken financial baths by having the Breeders Cup on their grounds, since they still have to maintain the facility, pay employees, and clean up afterwards.

Churchill wasn't going to host the BC again until they could broker a better deal.

Ditto from me on this.

Fans don't contribute that much to the handle.
 

They need gamblers not fans.

I would create a bet that is almost guaranteed to have a huge carryover and advertise the life altering amount of money you can win. People will show up to bet "The 7" or whatever and stick around to bet the other races.
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Definately work to get rid of the IRS 300-1. The feds may let you slide on losses vs winnings but the state only cares about the wins. "you lost? eh, too bad - pay me"
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I agree that the small fields hurt. I won't play a race with less than 8 horses. The "big name" horses can avoid each other and dominate a 4 or 5 horse field for the same money.

I'm having my doubts about poker being skill. I just got KO'd in a SitNGo final 2. I had a huge lead and these were my last 2 hands.

Me AJs small raise preflop He goes all in and shows 5-7o and catches a 5 to put him a little ahead.

Me AKs put in a small raise and he goes all in and shows 27o (NO ****) and hits a 2 on the river...

Sheesh.

The element of someone else's luck can crush you in poker, where as in horse racing is really more like s h i t and it just happens.

State of Racing
 

I still believe there needs to be better co-ordination amongst the various state racing jurisdictions. I realize that each state is its own entity which in itself creates multiple problems (medication, takeout, etc.) but it would be nice to see some effort amongst the states (especially those that are close to one another) not to write similar type of stakes on top of one another on the same weekend which has the effect of watering down the competition...

Licensing is a nightmare keeping up with each jurisdiction.....

As Steve stated earlier the boutique model is quite attractive compared to the rest of racing. Saratoga, Keeneland are unique meets and the beauty of the venues along with the shortness of their meets and quality is what makes them special. Can that be duplicated elsewhere? Probably not but a move in that direction seems to be worth exploring... Baseball seems to have reinvented itself by getting rid of the large stadiums and replacing them with smaller more attractive facilities. Racing 4 days a week with fuller fields is more attractive than 6 days a week (California). We probably need to think about closing more racetracks and having less days...

Purses. Churchill Downs is sort of dying here without passage of casinos. Belmont on a THursday in June has maybe 3,000 people on site. Philadelphia has purses that are quite attractive when compared to other sites. All of this needs to be sorted out and is part of the evolution process i guess. What is going to happen to Hollywood and Aqueduct/Belmont going forward?

PSH

I know what is wrong with America.

^
Cannon Shell Jr.

If I was only a skinhead. LOL

Hold'em is for no talent, no skill hacks. Check that, there is some skill involved reading probabilities, but for the most part, you have to get really lucky and pull your ass off at some highly improbable moment to win in those tournaments.

Real poker is a much more intricate game than Hold em.

Strip poker?

Yeah. That game is more fun to lose than regular poker.

Other forms that I think require far more skill are games like 5 card stud and draw, 7 card, etc.

Then there are games you don't ever see in casinos, more typical of a home based game, that are far far harder and minimize risks of losing from retarded blind draws such as in hold em.

Liars poker (or Indian poker) is just slightly less a skill game than hold em.

I've never understood the appeal of hold em, other than maybe it's a faster paced game where otherwise pretty dumb people can win lots of money.

The giants of poker from years past were much more colorful and interesting (and smarter) than the top players you see now in hold em.

Except maybe that one chick on TV who was in the SI swimsuit edition. She's interesting.

Racings biggest challenges to figure out, and frankly I don't think there is an answer, racing IMO will not make it long term other than a niche sport and gambling endeavor.

1. The takeout has to be lowered, you can't attract new gambling dollars when 25% of the pool is taken out on average, all people who gamble have become more sophisticated. The problem is the cost of doing business is such how can they lower them, it might take years to attract new fans to generate enough handle that say lowering them to 10% would do.

2. The full fields at tracks no one cares about is killing the premier tracks in the country...so it comes down to if you can get slot machines or not? Soon these tracks will just do away with the racing if they can, they are only going to shoot themselves in the long run while destroying the great tracks in the short term.

3. Racing cannot even get the best horses in each division to race against each other...half the tracks run on one type of surface and half on another.

4. Not everyone in every state can bet on horse racing, some can only do it at the track or OTB...its hard to believe that the lobby efforts in the sport can't figure out a way to make the computer the ATM of the race track.

5. Racing cannot even find a way to keep their male stars on the track longer than their 3 year old seasons, and if they do they run maybe 5 times a year. There should be a rule horses cannot be stallions until they turn 5, even if they are injured.

6. The medication problems are out of control and even the novice to a once a while player realizes that handicapping is more about figuring out past performance but which trainer is going to have the move up. Lax rules, testing and penalties only go to show how weak the racing bodies really are.

Exactly right.

"all people who gamble have become more sophisticated."

They don't feel like pouring money down a drain.

sounds like Poker Stars

What is sophisticated about the slot players? they out number horse players and they dont seen to have a problem with throwing money down the slot, which could be the same as a drain.

Horse racing will never be the same game it was in the 70's and early 80's, it was the only game in town for California.

You answer your own question. Nothing is sophisticated about a slot player, that is a constant addiction. Not 25 minutes betweeen races. Mind you slots mostly pay out about 90% which makes them a better bet for a gambler...idiotic to play slots IMO, nothing sporting about it.

Get rid of the small tracks, Get rid of cheap races.

I'm not sure anyone mentioned that our Stars Burn Out too quickly in this game.. The Crowds came out to SA for Zeyatta's BC Classic win and to the Haskell and Woodward for Rachel.... There has to be a star for the public to latch onto... Far too many horses are retired for the breeding shed too early.. It's the people with vision such as the Mosses and Allen Paulson who kept their stars in the game and gave the game something in return. I know that owners and breeders have rights but without the fans, the game is not viable...Make a rule that no horse under 5 yrs of age can be bred and reinvigorate the game with older stars that people have a chance to follow for more than a year and a half...The marketing comes naturally when we have something to market in this great game...

Ditto.

Wow:eek: . What do you mean by this? As a gambler AND a fan, I would rather watch Go for Gin against Curlin 10x (for example) and bet each and every time then wait until I knew one of them had tied up the week before and then scoring.:zz:

Betting and watching stars race are two different entities to me. I'll be interested in watching a 6 horse GI with a "star", but that's not going to make me want to bet another 6 horse field.

Give me more 9-10 horse Aoc $50000 or even 10 horses running for a $20000 tag if you want more $$ from me. The sport needs more gamblers, and do a better job of keeping gamblers. Gamblers want an opportunity to make $$, which happens with less takeout and some tracks falling by the wayside(or maybe less racing days per week for some).

Each state that wants to keep Horse racing needs to to give tax incentives to the owners and find some way to subsidize the purses to the point that you have a chance to make some money as an owner.

Reduce the take out.

Make it a level playing field for all gaming within the state. The Indian Casinos in California have it all over Horse racing.

Workmans comp insurance alone will run you out of business in this state.

I had time to think about this today. Track marketing departments need to buy the mailing lists and whatever else they can get from the nearest defunct dogtracks and sports teams, along with whatever data they can bribe away from their state and local health departments, and BLAST those people with as many promos and junk mail and phone calls as they can. This is the demographic you are trying to reach if you want GAMBLERS. In a perfect world, there WOULD be a lottery tie-in also.

i agree, but how do you cut down on races when every bull ring track has a racino with higher purses? if anything they keep adding races that are not even needed. mine that bird runs at mountaineer during haskell and travers time. the penn derby is a million with 2 good horses and 6 or 7 pigs. you are right they don't want fans they want gamblers. fans know what crap is. there needs to be a reasonable mix of fans and gamblers. as a gambler i'm glad when theres fields where only two horses have a chance. in many cases one horse and its a 1-5 shot, then even gambling is a lost cause thats why pic's are so popular. you can't make cracker crumbs on that unless you play pic's. as a fan i know its all garbage. the half dozen or so true grade 1 horse can run at 4 or 5 different tracks year round, on their perferred surface. yeah, that makes for great competition and thats what creates the "buzz". tickets are cashed and torn up right after the race. great races between the best horses gets you on tv. phony controversies between what coulda ,shoulda, might of because horses don't race(each other) is just another bad sign for the game.

The most important that tracks/the sport needs is bettors. And the fact that they can't even get this right, reguarding the whole signal fiasco is amazing.

I've been looking foward to today all week, my first free day in a while just to sit relax and bet. I bought todays form and it covers:
Aqueduct Cancled
Gulfstream Signal dispute
Tampa Bay
Philadelphia Canceled
Fair Grounds Signal dispute
Santa Anita Signal dispute

Obviously the cancelations are bad luck. But we always discuss if there are to many races/tracks. But on this Sunday many people on the east coast only have access to about 2 tracks, Turfway and Tampa (not including Charestown and Hialeah). You would think that if racing can't fix this problem (where they are probably losing tons of money), how are they going to fix the other things that will supposedly make the game better. Bottom line is once again it's the bettors/fans that take it right in the shorts.

http://www.r2collective.com/content/...he-first-time/

I found this article to be a good read...

"In the late 1970s, the groundbreaking book “Positioning; the Battle for Your Mind” was published. To this very day, it is often quoted by marketers. The authors contend that you, your business, or your organization must define who you are and market that definition into your customers’ minds. You “position” yourself, and hope that the position you have carved out is a good one. If it is, you succeed; if it is not, you fail."

“Horses actually are tested for more drugs at a lower level than in any other sport,” Arthur said.

When horsemen are notified of altered testing regimens, they tend to alter their use of drugs. Anabolic steroids weren’t illegal in the U.S. until a couple of years ago, but once racing decided to ban their presence on race day, horsemen almost universally complied. Dr. Adam Negrusz, the director of the Illinois laboratory, said his lab had found just four anabolic steroid overages in the course of its testing.

There does exist the belief that committed cheaters will stay one step ahead of lab chemists. Really, only a blunderer would try to cheat with a medication on the ARCI Class 1 list. There clearly is a better chance of getting away with using a medication that is not well known, though the best testing equipment is supposed to detect anything unusual, identifiable or not.

“I guess I scratch my head at why six or seven guys can be 75 percent win off the claim,” New York trainer John Kimmel said. “That’s a hard thing to figure out. There are some medications we seem to be ignorant about that are obviously getting through.”

In this regard, Kimmel praised the new trend toward unannounced, out-of-competition testing at private farms or sometime in the middle of a training cycle when a race isn’t at hand. Out-of-competition testing has gained popularity in the U.S., with Kentucky recently approving the practice, and it is already widely employed in England, according to Dr. Tim Morris, director of equine science and welfare for the British Horseracing Authority. Morris said England has moved away from the blind screening of one winner and one randomly selected horse from a given race – the way things are usually done in this country – and toward intelligence-led target testing.

“We’ve moved away from post-race testing,” Morris said. “Still the majority is post-race, but we have much wider criteria: Betting patterns, performance on the day, stewards watching the race, vets with information. It’s no longer the only way, no longer formulaic. We also do pre-race testing and out-of-competition testing, and all that is driven by intelligence. We use the structures that law enforcement uses to gather information. We rely on patterns building up. It’s good use of racing’s resources, but it’s also more effective.”

England has one centralized laboratory where all testing is performed. So does Canada. In the United States, however, testing is done at many laboratories, some with different types of equipment, making uniform testing procedures impossible. Moreover, guidance on withdrawal times for therapeutic medications in the U.S. is a hodgepodge: A single drug, such as the common tranquilizer acepromazine, has a bevy of recommended withdrawal times listed, depending on the state in which a horse is racing. In Canada, it’s one lab and one national book of therapeutic medications with recommended withdrawal times.


“It’s a universal desire to have a national regulatory scheme so there aren’t different rules in different jurisdictions,” said Dr. Scollay. “It’s tough on horsemen, horses, vets, and presents concerns for the wagering public. Every aspect of the industry is working toward that.”
One aspect in particular is engaged in heavy lifting – the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. The RMTC had its genesis about 10 years ago. A board of directors comprising 25 racing-industry stakeholders governs the organization, based in Lexington, Ky., and headed by Dr. Scot Waterman.
...


The RMTC is establishing threshold levels for commonly used therapeutic drugs. First, the group funds and administers scientific studies. After analysis, the RMTC can approve a threshold level, at which point a recommendation is passed onto the ARCI. If the ARCI also approves it, the threshold is sent out in the form of a model rule to the 37 states that follow ARCI guidelines. Note the term, “model rule.” Neither the ARCI nor any other national organization has the power to enforce drug standards: They can only establish guidelines and hope that the various state regulatory agencies follow them.

Global cooperation, however, could help reduce the future cost of doing the science that can strengthen medication policy.

“The neat thing for us is we’ve been able to make some nice connections with our European counterparts,” Waterman said. “It looks like we’re going to start sharing information.”

What might be more difficult to obtain is public support. Both the general public and a great number of racing fans continue to vociferously question the role of drugs – therapeutic or otherwise – in Thoroughbred racing.

“What in God’s name has happened to the sport of kings?” wrote a commenter on an article detailing the Canterbury drug positives on the Thoroughbred Times website. “It has turned to the sport of narcotics.”

The Internet is awash with such comments. And it is also true that racing is awash in therapeutic medications.

“There definitely is a culture of medication in this country,” Waterman said. “There’s no question about it. We lose on that comparison. That’s the way it is. This has been 30 years in the making.”

“Hay, oats, water? Where is hay, oats, and water?” Pletcher said. “Is it 24 hours out? Forty-eight hours out? Seventy-two hours out? Six months out? What is it? It’s foolish to think that horses are not going to have problems. We’re going to have to treat those in some way. Again – where’s the guideline? If hay, oats, and water means nothing can be given seven days out, then let everybody know that. Fourteen days out, whatever you want it to be. I don’t think it’s very practical. I think it’s in the horse’s best interest not to do that, but if they want to do it, everyone will adhere as long as they know where it is.”

Right now, few seem to know while many are being caught up in the chaos. And that is a situation for which there should be zero tolerance.