Why they slowly turned horse racing into a 450lbs lady with no tattoos or herpes...?

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by joeydb

It hits me in the gut to see a brainless game beating our game. It's an anti-merit situation.

I believe it all gets back to the takeout. It's my opinion that horse racing should - and possibly would - be more popular than the NFL and MLB had takeout steadily been reduced from 10% starting levels as opposed to steadily increased.

Betting on the sport would be absolutely huge beyond belief. The lead to Sports Center many nights would be a horse racing story - now, it's a rareity if an elite race gets covered on ESPN .. and if the College Vollyball game goes to overtime you could miss half of the coverage.

Horse racing is only an essential to life for a few truly crazy crazies like myself. All of the suckers, hunch players, name betters have been seduced away by lotto's and slots. And as the pair-mutual competiton has become tougher the takeout has risen well beyond oppressive levels.

What happens to countries when they oppress her people? What happened in Rome when the bread and circuses ran out? What happened in France when they were told to eat cake by a clueless aristocrat? What happened in Athens when a handful of oligarchs marched them off a cliff in the Peloponesian War? What's happening in Egypt right now?

Because horse racing is not an essential - and never will be - instead of a revolt you just see the sport has slowly slid more and more to irrelevance with the general public for all but one or two days a year.

The remarkable thing is that no one gains from raising takeout. Progress is stunted and everyone loses from it. It honestly makes no sense at all to me. The part I never understood was why it went up in the first place. That's why I found the following quote from the 1950's so interesting ...

[tector]

For most people, the ROI on slots (6% takeout) is going to be better for them than racing (20%), because most people are brainless bettors. That is not a sin, it is just what they are looking for.

If you want to use your brain just a wee bit, then solid basic strategy blackjack and stick-to-the smart-bets craps (assuming you are allowed decent odds bets) are probably best for those who want to be just slightly engaged in their wagering.

For who really want to work at it, the real competition for horse racing is sports wagering (@5% takeout) and poker (generally 5-10% rake).

Of course racing has some advantages over these, at least in my mind--a beautiful day at GP, SAR, DMR, SA or KEE beats the sh!t out of any sportsbook or card room. But if it is January at Penn National, those advantages are not so evident.

Takeout MUST come down--it is killing the game by pushing away smart money. And dumb money has too many other less expensive choices nowadays.

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by tector

Takeout MUST come down--it is killing the game by pushing away smart money. And dumb money has too many other less expensive choices nowadays.

Very succinctly and accurately stated. Excellent.

[brockguy]

Betfair

[randallscott35]

Originally Posted by brockguy

Betfair

I wish every day

[The Indomitable DrugS]

There are ways around the wait with Betfair - and you can be in action at Ehorse's exchange within 10 minutes... albeit that's less liquidity, but if you have both markets open together - just offer about what's quoted at Betfair at Ehorse... and funny how it will get matched more often than not.

The only knock on the exchanges is you can't get down on exotics with them.

Within 10 minutes, anyone - even the smallest of bettor - can have an exchange and an 8% rebate on exotics. That's not exactly a secret. There are other, more elaborate paths to better deals as well. Basically, it's not the existing horseplayer being gouged as much as it is the future of the sport.

[randallscott35]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

There are ways around the wait with Betfair - and you can be in action at Ehorse's exchange within 10 minutes... albeit that's less liquidity, but if you have both markets open together - just offer about what's quoted at Betfair at Ehorse... and funny how it will get matched more often than not.

The only knock on the exchanges is you can't get down on exotics with them.

Within 10 minutes, anyone - even the smallest of bettor - can have an exchange and an 8% rebate on exotics. That's not exactly a secret. There are other, more elaborate paths to better deals as well. Basically, it's not the existing horseplayer being gouged as much as it is the future of the sport.

Ehorse sucks compared to Betfair. I don't do business with certain countries offshore either.

[brockguy]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

There are ways around the wait with Betfair - and you can be in action at Ehorse's exchange within 10 minutes... albeit that's less liquidity, but if you have both markets open together - just offer about what's quoted at Betfair at Ehorse... and funny how it will get matched more often than not.

The only knock on the exchanges is you can't get down on exotics with them.

Within 10 minutes, anyone - even the smallest of bettor - can have an exchange and an 8% rebate on exotics. That's not exactly a secret. There are other, more elaborate paths to better deals as well. Basically, it's not the existing horseplayer being gouged as much as it is the future of the sport.

yeah the exotics would be a hurdle especially in the States where it is so ingrained in your betting culture.

I can definitely see top tracks like Saratoga in the summer match $5million plus per race in the win market easy if it was fully opened up.. If a suitable agreement was put in place to give the tracks a fair cut (the difficult part), exchange betting has huge potential.