7 days until they drop the bomb at GP

[pointman]

The notion that "the bet was originally designed with the hope of giving one of our customers the chance to make a life-changing score with the kind of payout we had today" is preposterous.

The bet was not put in place for that reason, it was put in place to generate a pk6 pool that could rake in a lot more money for the track since the traditional pk6 play at Gulfstream was not able to generate the pool sizes that are generated in Southern California or New York.

The bet is designed for people to spend their money chasing an almost impossible dream with a minimum designed to draw any size player regardless of how much they can afford to spend. As Doug has pointed out on numerous occasions, the level of takeout makes it a sucker bet for the vast majority other than the mandatory payout day.

This bet helps the small player (on any day other than a mandatory payout) as much as the lottery helps the poor who dump a percentage of their money into that.

[Merlinsky]

Originally Posted by pointman

The notion that "the bet was originally designed with the hope of giving one of our customers the chance to make a life-changing score with the kind of payout we had today" is preposterous.

No it isn't. Can't spell preposterous without "PR." That's what that statement is meant to be, and a bunch of money getting won sometimes is basically like the track spending a lot on advertising to create a 'you can win millions too, America!' feeling. It's not true most of the time, but who cares? That's the case with a lot of gambling or tracks and casinos wouldn't do it. I think if you ask most people if the odds are in their favor to pull in a score like that, they'll reasonably figure 'nope.' Is anybody really kidding themselves unless they've got a gambling addiction and it's the next score with their last $20 that'll bring it on home for them? We all know the game.

People get mad when someone who isn't poor or middle class wins the lotto. It does seem weird that they play a game of chance with no ability to reason their way into a win and take money that poor people put in to add to riches they've already got, so I get the frustration. Literally anybody could put in $1-2 and take down the Powerball or whatever. Putting more money in it doesn't increase your chances, it's still several 1 in XY million chances. Racing's a different game where you can make educated guesses so it makes sense to put more money into it. A lot of people with money bet a lot or put money into the game in other ways, enabling higher purses, etc. so we have races to watch in the first place (obviously that's overly simplistic, but c'mon, it adds up when enough people put thousands at a time on race days). Dan bets with his pocket book in the form of bets and buying horses. Frankly I don't object to them getting a big payout. The DRF.com conspiracy theorists are tearing him a new one in their comments with no proof, just resentment. It sounds like sour grapes rather than evidence of wrongdoing to me. Sometimes people who put up a lot of money get more of it back.