Just go to an OTB and count the number of women and men.

Then come back here and keep kidding yourself.

But thats the point coach isnt it? I love racing. I will sit here online with you fools all day and night long and I will bet on youbet. But go to an OTB?

There is a place in Manhattan called the Playwright. I'm sure the NY contingent knows about it. Its not a bad place. But really...its kind of gross. Most OTB's seem seedy. Im sure there are exceptions but most I have encountered are disgusting looking places.

Go to Charlestown on a saturday night. Yes, charlestown West Virginia. The dining room is PACKED and anyone who has been there will say that it is easily 50% female (most likely over 50%). They are there for the racing and the gambling. Sure, its not Saratoga, but at the same time its suitable and you aren't sitting around a bunch of scuzzy guys yelling obscentities at a tv.

As the product becomes more female friendly, you will see an increase in female fans. Is it not fair to say that VENUE is a huge part of the product?

Totally agree.

On an aside, in the last few months, I've taken my first trips to Charlestown and Penn and have been pleasantly surprised.

Seedy as in the men there? Then that problem will never change.

The OTB in downtown Indy and the one in Evansville are not seedy facilities...just full of seedy people.

And live racing is a different ballgame. Most of the people in the clubhouse are couples and the men tend to bet much more while the women bet $2 and would rather spend two hours playing with their food.

And really if you're just going to bet $1 exactas and $2 win bets do it with 15 minutes left to post, not 1 minute and then take 2 god damn minutes to get the bet in.

So what I'm saying is women, for the most part, hurt the game more than help it.

The Playwright....Gross?!?!.....:mad:

Although, I do also enjoy Clancy's when in Saratoga :D

The more I think about it...

trying to get women to the track could be the final nail in the coffin for this sport.

When I watch Hollywood Friday Night Racing brought to you by TVG's Daily Double Whorefest Show... I realize that bringing young sluts to the track can only result in unwanted pregnancies and potential marriages which will more than likely take real gamblers (men) away from the game.

Now that they have the added responsibility of child support they won't have the disposable income to bet. All the $2 broads in the world couldn't make up for losing a whale.

I used to love going to the OTB in high school. Eventhough I was MAYBE one of 3 girls.. and the other 2 girls were working as tellers. But then again I've never felt uncomfortable being the only girl in a group of hundreds of old men.

its pointless to argue that women even bet nearly the amount men bet, cause its simply not true.

If an man and a woman both had the same amount of disposible income, who do you think would be more likely to spend it on gambling. Men are the easy 1-20 favorites there.

its it worth spending lots in marketing to get young women involved? or would it be more worth while to spend that money getting young men involved?

thats an easy answer for me if I'm a marketing director. Though horse racing doesnt seem to market to ANYONE, which is the main problem.

a lot of people go to Keeneland, Del Mar, Saratoga, etc.. FOR the women! its always good for women, men, kids, or anyone to go to the track!

Maybe it could work if the ladies could bet on horses in a race and have a tiered list of items they could win instead of money. Say like a vajazzle for the favorite or a coach purse for the longest shot on the board. ANd if they play exotics they could win big prizes like a pink miata for the chalk exacta or a weeks vacation to Chicago and tickets to Oprah.

maybe if tracks could figure out.. and I have no idea for the life of me how the would.. a way to create a JACKPOT in horse racing.

It could move slot players (lots of women & men) to play horse racing. Kind of like what Oaklawn did, but make it better and more interesting. Slot players LOVE the jackpot and dont like having to study bets.

Maybe have more gray horse days. Women love em some gray horsies.

do you have any serious idea's? Horse racing does an absolutely terrible job marketing itself. Byk seems like the only one out there marketing for racing. There has to be some suggestions people can come up with that would help..

It wouldn't feel right trying to get new people to the game at this moment.

There are too many internal problems in the sport. The main one being horrendous fields and now the horrendous fields are more often than not 6 horses or less.

Fact of the matter is this isn't the same sport that got me hooked when I was young...it's a parody of itself.

very much agreed.

first thing that racing needs to do is close half of the tracks. if you cant average 9 or more starters per race you dont get a racing lisence.

it seems like the only reason a lot of small tracks are open anyway is slot machines. ugh, maybe Freddy does have a point.

At the risk of drawing further ire....

You would get a long way if you referred to them as " women. "

On the other highlighted part......what percentage, pray tell, of men are " completely competent with a Form " and feel free to include yourself.

I haven't been to Churchill this year so not completely sure about the prices...

$5 parking
$3 admission
clubhouse? $5
program $3
Daily Racing Form $7.50
Food for two $15-20

Say a couple brings $100-$150 to the track... a large percentage is already going to the greedy corporate tax. So with the money they have left over their chances of making a few bucks and not losing it all are stacked against them.

And if they go on a day outside of the derby they are likely to have a bad experience. It's like trying to get into the White House in some parts. "No you need a pass for this area, another $10 bucks"

They nickle and dime the average Joe to death.

And you wonder why this sport can't grow?

:tro:

Maybe 25% of men can understand the form.

Maybe 10% of women.

This says nothing of handicapping ability, just a basic understanding of what to base a choice on. And then a horse comes out with a pink shadow roll and "that's the one."

Don't go there with shorts on.

I laughed..

LOL - I agree. First, spending a flat 25% of one's income gambling is a concept I think many men and women would find imperfect ;) Secondly, few people can regularly take time off their jobs to physically attend a race track multiple times a week.

But the above is not the only scenario that defines a gambler. Busy professionals may not gamble frequently, but they certainly have the income to gamble significant amounts of money when they chose to. And women are a large part of that group today.

I know several women who spend a good amount of money ($1000 or more) monthly, and quite a few who spend a little here and there. As I said, ADW's make it easy.

Keeneland is a boutique meet, certainly, but look at the numbers of women walking up to the windows there. Churchill, Turfway ...

Women don't want to go to an OTB. I can't stand Keeneland in winter - drunk, swearing, loud guys rule the roost many days on the general open floors. But TV and an ADW make racing - and gambling - easily accessible.

Women also don't generally feel the need to publically compare the size of their winnings thus I think fly under the radar more (look at this board).

I know some like to picture themselves as hardened racetracker originals, big spenders and tough gamblers, etc - feel free to embrace that, but it's far from the only paradigm. Cigar-smoking college guys throwing away a couple hundred a day may rule the apron at Keeneland in spring, but upstairs - and at home - there are plenty of people quietly pursuing a more businesslike model to gambling, and that takes significant disposable income, and women are right there. Don't discount a huge potential audience of intelligent, risk-enjoying, high income people just because they don't have peni.

I think you would agree that the gals from this board who are talking about their wagering adventures are females that GREW UP liking racing. They didn't attach to it at 24 years of age. It has been in their blood since very young.

And quite honestly, I don't think marketing to woman in areas like Saratoga, all of Kentucky, Florida, and even in California is a bad thing because those areas are probably the high concentrate of horse population and it is more popular there, but if you were to market horse racing to woman in say Chicago, or Los Angeles, or New York, you are barking up the wrong tree there and wasting money.

Wrong. The first time I stepped foot on a track was in 2004 after watching TV and getting hooked. Instead of going to the beach with all of my girlfriends, I took a vacation to Saratoga by myself.

But just because they go to the track doesn't mean that they all sit home betting into their accounts (if they even have them). I'm sure that there's a segment that does, but I'm sure that they are the minority by a large margin.
I think it's a very tough sport to lure new fans to, let alone women. Most handicappers (die hard fans) were most likely introduced to the sport at a young age. Then they continued or rediscovered the sport somewhere down the road in life. I personally gambled on all types of things and eventually came back to Racing for various reason. One of them is that I enjoy (most of the time) taking the time to handicap and try to put the puzzle together.

Personally I think that is one of the biggest problems drawing people in (especially younger ones). There's no instant gratafication, of winning a poker pot, blackjack hand, spin on a slot machine and so on. Also no studing or time is needed to pick/put horses together in a sequance. People want action and want it as quick as they can get it. I think that they don't want to study/watch replays for an hour or two and then go to the track and watch 2-3 races an hour.

Sighty, you are the exception to the rule. The majority of the girls would have stayed at the beach.

Exactly, people can sit down in a poker game and get that juice when they want it. Horse racing takes years and years before you get good, and even then it will humble the living hell out of you.

ok, you are not looped in on this anymore, but as Math said you are the exception to the norm.

But I think that is the point, there are other women like myself and My Miss Storm Cat that can be lured in and trying to do so is not a waste of time and an impossible task. This is not to say that this is the most important segment of the public that racing needs to charm. They (racing) absolutely needs to get their act together in pleasing the heavy bettor and getting tracks and ADWs to work with one another and all of the other countless issues that go along with this so I can understand the argument that their energies are misplaced.

I don't disagree with you about there not being women bettors, but I just feel that the number Riot put out there for ones with wagering accounts is way way off base.

How many girls do you think AP will rope in from this American Idol BS on Friday night?

This is my kind of girl.

NT

No, I wouldn't agree, simply because I have no idea if that assumption is remotely true or not.

Are you saying that people cannot come to a love of horse racing after they are 18? :zz:

I keep wondering about what sport everyone is refering to? Are we talking about the same one? You know the one where the growth is almost exclusively in account wagering?


The product is gambling. It is neither male or female friendly. The KY Derby and Oaks are not the product nor are the tv ratings for those anything but a sidebar. Horseracing does NOT derive any signifigant revenue from TV unilke other sports which derive the vast majority of their revenue from TV. What Bravo or ABC or NBC focuses on during its telecasts dont change the fact that we need people betting into the pools on days other than Derby days.

It is good news that ratings are up. However no one should think that the increase in ratings is "because of" something done right or that an increase in ratings for a singular event (Derby) translates into "we are going into the right direction with our new focus". All it means was the ratings were up for a 2 hour period one day of the year.

There's bound to be some waitresses that think they can sing....

I do think that there's a window there that makes it very hard for women to break into the sport. For instance Sighty's example of all her friends wanting to go to the beach and her still going to the track by herself. I would think that most girls are going to want to be with their friends and do whatever they are doing. I just can't see (at least any of the girls I know) getting a call from a friend saying they were going to a pool party and the girl saying no because she's trying to watch race replays in anticipation on playing an early pick 4 somewhere. And if they do decide to ditch them it will be most likely for a significant other instead of going to what could be a very intimidating male oriented place.
Then as you get older, you end up with a career and sometimes you drift away from some of your friends. You start wanting different things. Sure there might be some time and money to invest in the sport then. Obviously if you are single, you have a better chance to really get into it.
But if you should meet someone and that person isn't really isn't into it, I'm thinking it might be hard to spend has much time as you want playing and watching. Then if marrige/kids come into play, you are done for a while. If my wife should get a day to herself (which never happens, she's lucky if she gets 2 hours) I know for sure she's not spending it at the track. Also because she values money in a different way now as well (she's practical, I'm not).
But I do think you can get back into or fall in love with the sport if introduced/reintroduced after everyone is all grown up. Probably have some money and now you have all the time in the world to spend doing spomething you love.

We don't need people to fall in love with the sport, we need people to BET!

Not any more. Take a population of 14-year-old girls and 14-year-old boys and which population knows more about horses and horse racing? The girls by far.

The only exposure to horse racing is no longer the back page of the sports section gambling race results, it's the internet.

So allow young fans to continue to be fans of the sport, and of the horses. I don't understand the belittling and insult directed to "only a fan". When people earn enough money, they'll gamble.

I haven't seen much success to be pointed out within the past 50 years promoting horse racing as a great money-making speculative venture. Either in bloodstock or via the windows. See the 1980's pyramid schemes.

Maybe, but when it comes time that they go to college or are old enough to drive and gamble who do you have a better chance of seeing at a track/otb?

Fortunately, more and more women ;)