It's distribution, not the economy

I am both sick and tired of racetrack suits blaming the economy for their woes.

Sure, the economy has likely reduced the discretionary spending of many of the Thoroughbred industry's patrons, but it hasn't eliminated discretionary spending.

I have a little less money to spend now than I did a year ago, but I'm still making decisions on how to spend that money. I enjoy gambling, so I still gamble. I just don't do as much of it. That means I either play the horses OR play poker once in awhile rather than do both twice in awhile.

Poker has made tremendous strides to make the game accessible to people throughout the country of all ages. Granted, the legality of those strides is suspect at best considering much of it involves gambling via the Internet, but there is some applicability to racing involved just the same.

The so-called poker boom earlier this decade brought a record number of people to card rooms at existing casinos. On my first trip to Vegas in May 2001, only a handful of casinos even spread poker, and those that did dealt either limit Texas hold'em or limit seven-card stud.

The key is that people who had never played before in a casino, experienced the game online, and liked it enough to create a demand for casinos to build additional poker rooms or expand already existing ones.

Compare this to the racing industry's approaches to off-track and advance depost wagering. Most tracks would rather add slot machines than build an off-track betting network. If the New York Racing Association was able to treat New York City OTB handle as if it were on track handle rather than from just another OTB, then it wouldn't need slots.

Maybe if Keeneland had its own ADW online and OTB across town, I wouldn't do all my betting through TwinSpires.com. Sorry, Keeneland. I love your facility and love the social aspect of gambling on horses, but I'm not driving 25 minutes to bet a few races when I can do it from home and actually hear a race call. And since I do my betting 10 months out of the year on TwinSpires, I might as well do it the other two months you run live racing, too. TwinSpires gives me points, you give me infuriating lines.

Takeout is a factor, too. Most people have less to bet and with 25%-30% takeouts on some bets in some jurisdicions, people are coming to the track with less and leaving with less than ever before.

Again, tracks would rather offer slot machines with a 5%-15% takeout than improve wagering on their core product, which already has a takeout with a floor at slot machines' ceiling!

To be fair, I can't blame tracks for wanting slots. They make money, the overhead is cheap, and they can run 24/7-365. As Randy Moss correctly points out in a blog post from last week, those tracks and horsemen who have received slots have not kept up their end of the bargain to help improve racing--certainly not in Pennsylvania where takeout on multi-horse wagers is 30% at some tracks.

The conventional wisdom at the forefront of the slots boom was that more money for purses would bring better horses. There are five- and six-horse fields galore at Woodbine, and it's the same quality horses at Mountaineer now as 15 years ago accept those horses just race for more money.

Slots have improved the product at some tracks and the breed in some states, but despite the influx of money from the machines, the overall breed and product remain the same. Now instead of West Virginia being the lowest level in racing East of the Mississippi, Ohio now has that role.

It's likely too late now to change the mentality of states and tracks to think past slots, but it would be great for the industry if more states tried to adopt the European model of off-track betting whereby smaller shops are allowed to accept wagers on horses. Arizona, California, New York, and other states have tried it to various extents, but an offtrack on-track model in racetrack markets could go a long way.