SUN: Racing's media makeover paying off

[MaTH716]

Originally Posted by Riot

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.

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.