Washington Post/George Will article..

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by freddymo

Why anyone continues to think slots are the holy grail for racing it is beyond me... Slots destroy people, there damage costs way more to repair then the short term good.. Racing needs to fix its product based on what it can control not the alure of slot dollars.. IE Nerud message

Am I happy to race a horse at PID in a state bred Mdn Spl for 70k sure ,but I recognize that in 3 years all the bloom will be for the rose and folks will be broke and PID state breds will be racing for 27k again.. Its a shot in the arm for a few years and then you still have to deal with broke ass folks who were baited into losing they lives... Slots suck!

I agree: Slots are a stopgap measure at best. They are not a panacea. They also appeal to people who are not likely to become horseplayers no matter how much the game changes. The slot player does not want to think about their selections -- here's the extent of the experience: "-CLICK- -CLICK- -CLICK-" (repeat a couple of thousand times).

Unfortunately we are not capable of dumbing down the game enough to appeal to slot players -- and we should not try to do so. Aside from accessibility and marketing, a leadership post at the national level, and the ending of the intransigence of the state-based fiefdoms, there is not a lot that can be done about the game. A race will still take 20 minutes between starts, time that we handicappers put to good use, and it will always be difficult to figure out who's going to win, place or show, or complete exotics.

We horseplayers are in as unfortunate position as those who enjoy other intellectual pursuits -- we don't drive the market more than those who don't participate. Some of the best movies don't do well at the box office, making it less likely to see more of that caliber. Classical music stations do terrible in the ratings and advertising rates so they don't last forever.

The thing that really gets my goat is that racing (and to a similar extent, poker) need not be "negative expectation" games all the time. As we all know, sometimes the odds are higher than they should be on a horse, making him a good bet. This never happens at a casino table game, where odds are fixed to always be lower than true risk, and especially not at the slots, where the real risk numbers are often not even published!

The gambling public is actually being less well served by the casinos than the racetrack, where parimutuel betting is self equalizing over time, and provides a more interesting "market" for action, literally. Again, we all know this, but I try my best to advocate on racing's behalf to those friends of mine whom I know enjoy gambling and whom I also know are ignorant of racing's obvious advantages over casino gaming.