Philly.com
 

Typical hatchet job. I am not so sure I am of the opinion that because racing contributed billions to government (the people) for 125 years they are now entitled to be subsidized but this is an unfair article.

1 point that is very real is the foal count figures. Only 800 in 2013 is horrendous figure and doesn't bode well for the argument that higher purses and state bred dollars fuel the breeding side of the business.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Gi..._industry.html

Its just a matter of time Freddy...

From the comments. Having no idea what they are talking about doesn't stop Kutch.

" It's a disgrace that all those millions are going to billionaire sheiks!!! What about our elderly? What about our schools? How cna the people insist that this law be changed?! "
— KUTCH507

i feel like a conspiracy theorist, but i feel like the state had those guys write this article to let things be known to the public and create public pressure to divert those funds away from the horse racing industry.

Discussed this embarrassment on ATR today.. Clearly a thorough and accomplished pair wrote this piece: "A colt owned by wealthy California businessman J. Paul Reddmam."

800 foals in Pa. in 2013? Wasn't all this breeder money and inflated purses at every level suppose to enrich the industry. Do we need more horse supply people in Pa.? How about more vet's? Anymore real jobs? IF SO all pundits have to do is prove it right. The biggest real question is...Is the state getting more money from larger handles? Is the seed money working to create more revenue for the state? Isnt that the real issue and not entitling racing to continue to get teet money from slots just because in 1949 there wasnt wide spread gambling like there is today?

While the whole USA was in a horrendous way in 2008 nickle claimers at Penn Nat were runner for 16000, at Monmouth they went for 25 and 30k, If handles inflate with the purses then States are happy because the kick is greater. The issue is handles arent going up and unless we do something to increase handle that slot money will be gone soon.

The insanely high takeout at Parx is part of the reason why no one cares about it's racing product and why it handles so poorly despite huge purses and decent racing.

Presque Isle Downs has twice lowered takeout in the last 5 years and they have established very low minimums on all exotic wagers, probably thanks to the badgering local newspaper.

The paper in Philly seems far more harsh. They want significant purse reductions instead of significant takeout reductions.

Has anyone seen the takeout on some of the exotic wagers at Parx?

How is handle going to increase in Pennsylvania with those high takeout rates?

This high handle nonsense just doesn't fly in the modern world. Go to a rebate shop and tell them you want to 1000 a day on Parx tri's and you will get 21% kick. Talk net takeout not advertised. Handle will be positively effected by lower takeout but remember you are looking for the sweet spot that maximizes play and still leaves enough for operators and the State. If it was truly in the states interest to lower rake on all products they would make the daily pik 3 lottery pay 850 to 1 instead of 500.

Steve and others seem to be of the opinion that because in 1956 horse racing kicked money to state governments exclusively that they hold a legacy to rake from other forms of gambling. That really is extremely parochial IMO (not saying I am right). Racing needs to reinvent itself so that it can stand alone on its own two feet without the help of slots.

Freddy, just because some of us have the will to get deals from rebate shops or off shore entities, doesn't mean excessive takeout isn't the biggest problem in the sport. This sport can't hold serve with its avg customers. It simply can't grow like it should. All growth is thanks to technology advances that make it way easier to bet than ever before. A lot of avg customers have to be like masochistic Cleveland Browns fans and put up with constant sustained losing. It's tough to subject your customers to those conditions, when they have so many other forms of gambling available to them. The biggest obstacle to growing is the reality of what the rake does, not the rake itself.

This article was so ridiculously bad, I literally stopped noting it's generalizations, inaccuracies, lack of context, the legislative history, etc. Everything that may have shown slots at tracks were good was literally marginalized at every turn.

Probably the most egregious example was the number of licenses (jobs, essentially) increasing 241% in seven years was identified as "a gain, though not a big one."

It was obviously a horrible article.

However, Parx and Penn National should be condemned.

Trifecta Takeout for the three PA tracks:

Presque Isle Downs: 25%
Parx: 30%
Penn National: 31%


Superfecta Takeout for the three PA tracks:

PID: 25%
Parx: 30%
Penn National: 30%


Pick 3 and Pick 4 takeouts:

PID: 23%
Penn National: 25%
Parx: 26%


Penn National and Parx both don't have PID beat in a single wagering category, from win-place-show through Pick 4's.

PID has 50-cent trifectas, 50-cent Pick 3's, 50-cent Pick 4's, and 10-cent supers.

Don't get me wrong...it's not that PID really cares about horse racing. They usually complain about "the state" when it comes to takeout, but they have at least made a small effort to work with "the state" and make their racing product the most attractive option in this pathetic state.

Handle in the second season was laughable here at PID. Now you get some Monday and Tuesday cards with over $40,000 just in the exacta pool, and similar fat pools in the other exotics, all offering low minimums.

No one detests PID's management more than I do...but at least they've made a very small effort in some important areas.

Parx was firmly established as Philly Park and the city of Philadelphia owns one of the five largest populations in the entire United States.

If any track in the world deserves to have such a terrible hack article written about it...it's probably Parx. They've done zero for the racing fan or the good of the sport.

Regardless of how bad the article is, slots money will go away, and it will probably be sooner than people think. Imagine if tracks actually have to try to generate handle.

I see it the same way, CJ. Obviously, it seems as though it will take a good long while to get there, and the likelihood of any jurisdiction going from current slots revenue to NO slots revenue support is also highly unlikely. But a slow burn? Probably.

No ****. :$:

Well said

The obvious points missed that scream for attention is that Greenwood, the owner operator of Parx is a foreign based company and their cut of the slots revenue is far greater than the horse racing industry's share. Of course the only reason that parx/greenwood has slots is because of horseracing however that point always goes unnoticed. As for the conspiracy theory that the state is behind the article I would say that considering the buffoonery who make up the state politicians in PA it would be highly unlikely. However IMO conspiracy filled mind the most likely source of this and other anti-racing articles is upper level management at Parx. They stand to gain the most with an elimination of racing.

And lets be serious about the ridiculous notion that anyone at any gambling establishment should care where the money they loses goes to. Slots players don't support racing, they play slots. Like people that play powerball aren't playing it to make a life changing score but to actually support the social programs that supposedly are funded by the lottery? The racetrack and horseman have a contractual agreement to split the revenue. It is a business agreement not much different than when state provide certain businesses and industries sweetheart tax and other deals to lure them into setting up in their state. Are those deals fair to the other established businesses that are not getting incentives or tax breaks? Of course not. While it pretty much universally agreed that racing has squandered much of the money in an inefficient manner (probably nowhere moreso that PA) the idea that somehow these deals are immoral or unfair is ludicrous.

One thing I never hear mentioned which Chuck touched on is that State governments, in particular to NY, have used horse racing as a way to get other forms of gambling legalized, specifically Casino gambling.

Certainly in NY, there would be no slots at Yonkers, Aqueduct, Saratoga Harness, Monticello, etc., from which the State has made a ton of money, without tying it to the horse racing industry.

Typical government BS with the horse racing industry is to use the horse racing industry to achieve goals and then dump them when they don't need them.

Without any doubt, if New Yorkers approve gambling statewide as Cuomo wants in a vote to Amend the State Constitution, the money flowing to horse racing here will be immediately cut off.

But it should be. Horse racing shouldn't be subsidized and I love racing. Sink or swim.

I disagree. When the choice is between subsidizing an industry that the State has soaked for over 100 years while being able to raise significant tax revenue or having no casinos and having your residents subsidize the citizens of other states they are forced to go to gamble, the former is an easy choice.

When the gov't institutes competition with any existing business the existing business is almost always compensated in some way. Plus it isn't a subsidy when the existing business (the racetrack) becomes the casino, it is a business deal. If the casino has no relationship with the track whatsoever it would be considered a subsidy.

100 years? So let's make up for lost time....why is the Post Office a failure? And Amtrak? Racing can survive but it will look different.

What NYRA gets is not a subsidy. The land on which Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga sit was given to the state in exchange.

This here is what folks call a false equivalency.

Nick is absolutely right here, I used the wrong term. It is not a subsidy and NYRA in particular paid dearly in this deal with the theft of their land which, let's be honest, the State took for purposes that are not in the best interest of the horse racing industry.

Comparing racing to the Post Office or Amtrak is absolutely ridiculous, in fact, it only highlights what happens when the government gets their hands on an industry and ultimately destroys it. In NY in particular, the State is the single most contributor to the model that has left NY horse racing not profitable.

Going back to the early 1970's and the decline of the model that made NY racing successful, the first big dent was OTB. I know there will be those who will blame NYRA for this since they had the opportunity to run it initially, but it is a choice that NYRA, Roosevelt, Yonkers, etc. should not have had to make. The only reason OTB's were put in place in NY was so the State could get a bigger cut of the money. Then when the State ran the OTB's they did so in a manner which had no interest in the racing industry but only suited the State, bigger cuts for the State and patronage and destroyed the racetracks' ability to remain profitable.

Any business whose model starts getting turned upside down by having more and more taken away from it will ultimately get to a point where there are too many hands in the cookie jar taking too much money from the business that it can no longer sustain a profitable model. It is the same reason that pushing higher and higher taxes on business ultimately becomes counterproductive because you put too many of them into a corner where they can no longer make a profit.

NYRA has been dealt the most ridiculous cards over the last 40 years that remaining profitable is impossible due to State interference. And I don't want to hear the decline in attendance BS.

Randall, your reasoning is not logical. You want to ignore how the government has put the racetracks in position to have an unprofitable model. Instead, you just want to say regardless of how we got here, the racetracks are responsible for getting out of a hole dug for them by someone else by themselves. Or as you say, lets chain a 1,000 pound weight on horse racing's legs and tell the industry sink or swim. :rolleyes:

I can't speak to NYRA's deal, I'm speaking in general on the nature of subsidies of which the NJ model of thoroughbred industry had for a long time and cost the state money in the process....The past is the past. Calzone had it right, you have lots of options with your gambling dollar, if tracks don't find an economy of scale and not assault the bettor with outrageous takes, they will be gone. The Parx and PIDs of the world first, the others to follow.

NJ never lost money on horseracing nor was horseracing there given a subsidy. All the nonsense out of NJ didn't take into consideration that when Gov fatso was saying that horseracing was costing the state money it was because they didn't include the large profit that NJbets (NJ OTB) was making. The horseracing industry in NJ was given money by Atlantic city casinos in order to stop pursuing slots, not as a subsidy. It really wasn't that much different than the deal that the MN Indian casinos cut with Canterbury except in that state the casinos didn't treat the tracks as an enemy.

Racinos
 

Coming from Rhode Island home of first Racino in the US articles like these were used to turn the public against the dog owners who brought the machines into Rhode Island.
It took a few years but they voted to change the terms and paved over the track the next week.
I don't want to tell you how they treated the simulcast fan.