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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
You dont think that racing has improved at Mountaineer or Woodbine? You think it is better for competition to come in and get favorable treatment and just let the tracks die because they cant compete without it? I agree that the tracks are not thinking forwardly in terms of doing more for the paying/betting customer. I campaign on a regular basis to track management thoughout the country for this. But a lot of that has to do with state mandated regulation where the state actually controls the pricing (ie.takeout)in an industry. What other industry has to to overcome a regulator that is also a competitor? (Lottery, etc) To say that all slots are doing is proping up an industry is words. I prefer allowing an industry to compete on a more level playingfield with other gambling competitors. It would be like McDonalds not being allowed to sell salads and chicken sandwichs because it started off as a hamburger joint. By allowing the tracks to expand their gambling menus you are benefiting the tracks, the racing industry and all associated businesses.
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I don't think racing has improved at slots tracks. You may get a horse or two for upper class races you wouldn't have got but no overall. And when a Thursday Philly Park race with an overinflated purse draws one or two runners out of NY, what good does that do? None, really. The Phil Park pools are too small and the takeout too usurious to wager seriously into so all you get in the end iis a watered down NY race.
I don't think slot machines compete for horse players. I doubt you can go to a slot room at a racino and see three people with a racing form. I do not believe they are the same people, no.
Should some tracks die because they cannot compete? Absolutely. I don't see anything wrong with people, businesses or industries who cannot compete failing. The favorable treatment you speak of I don't understand. It's not right to say that in one sentence without following it in the next by saying that the slot tracks are created, at least in great part, by the horse racing industry itself.
Your on your own with the McDonalds analogy. I don't get it. That's like saying US Steel should have gotten saved in the end despite the fact the economy changed and they couldn't compete. Who should have paid? Microsoft?
I'm not a takeout/regulations expert, so I concede there. But how can Ellis do what they did? It's possible, apparently.
It's not as if every single track that is succesful has slots. Tampa, Oaklawn, Arlington, Santa Anita, Keeneland all had or are having good meets this year. It's possible, apparently.
I understand that a new race track with high purses is a good thing for people who earn their money racing and like I said, people should certainly earn whatever they can.
If you try to explain to a non-racing fan what Presque is and why the purses there are as high as DelMAr and Saratoga but pools are going to be so low that a $100 wager will bang it up so much that you cannot bet the track, you'll get a confused response.
Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think tracks should exist if wagering does not support them.