http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/the-kentucky-derby-and-the-slow-death-of-horse-racing/256621/
Agreed, thanks for sharing.
I especially enjoyed the attached article, \"The Baleful Influence of Gambling\",
written by Robert F Kennedy about 50 years ago.
Good self righteous piece by the son of a bootlegger, brother of a serial
philanderer.
There\'s only \'too few fans\' due to simple math. Do illegal bookies and Las Vegas have a problem attracting bettors to wager on the NFL and the NCAA tournament? Absolutely not, Those \'gambling vehicles\' dont have \'too few fans\' and do you know why?
Its the price of the wager. Lower the price, and you get more customers.Keep the price ridiculously high and you attract many less customers.
Horse race bets are priced as if horse race gambling is the only game in town. It USED to sort of be the only game in town, but no more....and they haven\'t found a way to adjust to the idea that people have other options now.
As much has been made about illegal drugs and other \'reasons\' that the game is suffering, the bottom line remains that the price of the bet is too high, and that is the biggest culprit in the \'downfall\' of horse racing.
No horseplayer who\'s consistently winning decent money thru the windows is going to stop betting because a few horses broke down or because trainers are allegedly cheating. Winning bettors will continue to bet, its the losing bettors who are using the excuses that illegal drugging and race horse injuries are \'ruining\' the game. BUT, those people are not staying away from the tracks because they\'re sad a few horses broke down...they\'re staying away because they\'re not long run winners. And, because the takeouts are so high, they\'re not even CLOSE to being winning bettors.
NFL players are shooting themselves after their careers are over from brain issues, but people arent going to stop calling in NFL bets because of that. As long as the NFL takeout is 5%, people will continue to bet, even though the NFL is as dangerous to humans as horse racing is as dangerous to horses.
Not disagreeing one bit with your premise - complete agreement that the price is too high and the industry still carries on like they are the only gambling game in town.
Would only say that unlike the NFL, the horses don\'t have a say in whether they want to race or not. That fact alone definitely makes many people, given the breakdowns, stay away from this game.
Never has the message been delivered so clearly.
Plasticman is 100% right.
15% takeout versus 5% takeout.
Which do you prefer.
Everything else is window dressing or in other words; I can\'t be losing this much money betting on horses because hey I am a really smart guy; the game must be fixed, if only we could get rid of the drugs and the cheaters, then I would win.
I gave up horses for poker and the NFL.
I have never regretted my decision.
I have started going back to the track recreationally only because of the Justice Department ban on poker.
Thanks
Wild Again
Haven\'t read the underlying article, but the problem our sport faces is how do the people who put on the sport get compensated. In football, the team owners sell advertisements and tickets and souvenirs. In horseracing, the only way to pay for the sport is through betting. That is why the take is so high. If horseracing commanded the broadcasting fees or was able to bring fans into the park the way football could, the take out could be lower. Another way to make the take out lower would be to expand the betting pool....if the pools were big enough (Hong Kong - like), then the take would not need to be as high a percentage to pull out enough revenue to pay for things.
Who proofreads and fact checks over there? Caption under the pic \"Canonera\"? lol, maybe that was Canonero II little sister.