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Originally Posted by ateamstupid
I love the always solution-oriented folks who preach about how the sport doesn't need fans, but gamblers.
Well, how the **** are we gonna get gamblers? You're not taking any gamblers away from the casinos, online poker, or anything like that. It's not happening.
We get gamblers by creating new fans, many of whom slowly evolve into gamblers or a combination of the two. That's what happened to me, and I'm pretty sure that's what happened to most of you as well.
There's no way to create horseplayers. You have to create fans first.
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Absolutely correct, ateam. The average serious gambler won't even consider horseracing for one reason. The track take is so high. A poker player has to give $2-$4 of the pot to the house when he wins. That's just a few percent. A blackjack player can play within 1/2 % of the house by spending 2 hours learning basic strategy. If she is motivated, she can learn to count cards and actually play with an edge over the house. (even idiot blackjack players find it hard to play with worse than 3% against them. A craps player can also play within 1% of the house. A sportsbettor has to overcome at most a 4.5% "take". Compare that to horseracing's 14-20% takes. Most educated sportsbettors think horseplayers are idiots. (very few sportsbettors understand that the fact that many horseplayers ARE idiots makes the game beatable, despite the high track take)
As ateam suggests, any significant surge of new horseplayers will have to be fed by a surge of fan interest.
--Dunbar