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Old 05-24-2014, 10:57 PM
Calzone Lord's Avatar
Calzone Lord Calzone Lord is offline
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Default The heinousness of takeout increases. Two of the worst ever

From Daily Racing Form:




The O'Dwyer Bite is the most infamous takeout increase in the history of horse racing.

Apparently, there were a lot of people, in racing at the time, who thought it wouldn't have much effect. From DRF:




Things got so bad in New York -- that New Jersey was supposed to emerge as a viable competitor. The fairly new Atlantic City and Monmouth Park were suddenly very legit competitors.

Until...New Jersey injected cancer into their horse racing program, by increasing the takeout 2% and upping the breakage from a nickle to a dime.

Here is the impact that the great New Jersey takeout increase had on betting handle in just 1-year:




For just $4,528 more per racing day, the State of New Jersey flushed the future of it's horse racing product down the toilet.

Garden State Park isn't even around any more. Atlantic City barely is around. Monmouth Park only runs 3-days a week.

This is what Garden State Park looked like in 1947:



It is now the site of a development of stores, restaurants, apartments, townhouses, and condominiums.


In my lifetime following horse racing, the two major tracks who campaigned the hardest for takeout increases were Hialeah Park under Brunetti, where they raised the takeout so high, it was 29% on trifectas.

The other was Rick Baedeker, the President at Hollywood Park in 2004. Baedeker's succeeded in getting the takeout raised for all Southern California tracks in 2004, and he seemingly single-handedly led the fight for it. He was the only guy talking it up to the press.

Was Hialeah saved by increase takeout rates? Was Hollywood Park saved by increased takeout rates?

Takeout increases NEVER produce the expected and desired results in the short-term, and they are the most heinous form of cancer to horse-racing in the long-term. Keep in mind, this is a sport who was once only rivaled by Major League Baseball, in terms of press coverage.

Imagine this...how would horse racing look without off-track wagering? Without exotic wagering? Without Advanced deposit Internet wagering? Without slot machines?

We even have table games in Pennsylvania. At 3AM, all I have to do is drive 2 miles, and I can play craps, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, pai-gow (whatever the hell that is) What hop does Pennsylvania racing have left? What's the next shot in the arm? On-site Prostitution?

The bottom line is that increasing the takeout does very harmful things to the horse racing product.
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