Tell Churchill Downs You Want Dime Supers!
 

If you're as unhappy as I am that Churchill Downs is refusing to offer bettors dime supers on Derby and Oaks days, please send an email to President Steve Sexton at ssexton@kyderby.com and GM Jim Gates at jimg@kyderby.com. It will be intersting to see if anyone gets a response.

Meh.

I'm not happy about it, but I can see why they're doing it.

Similar to what Andy said before, I think it would be fine if they allowed them everywhere but on track. I guess you'd get people at the Derby bitching about that though.

I an still not sure that wagering on CD will be allowed by all the AWD this spring. The dime Supers screw up more last minutes at the window on track everywhere that I am not sure this is what every race fan is interested in seeing this addressed

It's an unequivocally great online bet and on most days it wouldn't be a problem ontrack either.

I really don't believe that the 125,000 or so Kentucky Derby attendees who will likely witness only that one race all year are going to be storming the windows to wager on dime supers. It's a complicated bet for newbies in any denomination and I cannot, in my wildest dreams, imagine that novices will try it just because it is available for 10 cents. As far as regular horseplayers, the super isn't for everybody and I don't think those types will change their wagering habits just for this.

Why wouldn't they? It's the perfect bet for a novice. Cheap, a long shot to hit, but with a potentially large payout.

The fact that it's complicated wouldn't preclude newbies from trying to bet it. Have you ever been in a betting line at the Derby? It's Japanese Water Torture without the cool refreshment.

Can't speak for everyone, but I wager fairly often and hardly ever play superfectas, but the dime super is intriguing to me, and is something I'd definitely be playing on Derby day.

Exactly. I don't play superfectas.. or dime supers very often either. But when the $1 super payoff can be 40K in the derby(creating a 4k payoff for a dime), I'm more interested... or at least I was.

i made the mistake of thinking dime supers always pay a 10th of the payout for the $1 super. not so. we were at arlington, the super paid over 3k, so i figured hey, 300-or so bucks. paid $14 for the dime.
i've never played one again.

:confused: How did that happen?

because i'd imagine the pool that hit the dime super was filled by a lot more players than those that paid for the dollar bet. only thing i can figure. i have no idea.

I guess I've always assumed it's all put into the same pool... at least, any dime super I've ever hit (which isn't that many)... has always paid 1/10th of what the $1 payout was. Maybe they do things differently at Arlington.

yeah, i figured that they did. so i was none too thrilled to get the payout.

I totally understand.. I'd be pretty peeved too.

I sent an e-mail to both of them letting them know that I think the dime-super is stupid, and I thanked them both for NOT offering the wager.

I dont know why, but i hate dime supers!! and i dont even play them. I just wanna strangle the guy in front of me at the machine, when there is a minute to post, and he's constructing a 2.40 ticket, and he's not prepared as it is, looking at his form at the machine!! arggggh ok i'm done

Tampa only allows people to wager on dime supers at the self serve teller machines. The newbies trying to figure out the machine and the wager severely clogged the lines during big days. It forced me to go old school and place many of my wagers with actual tellers. I hadn't used a teller in years...

The complexity of the bet does not scare many off and I can see the drunken masses trying to hit the jackpot with their last $1.80 at 5:45pm next Saturday. That hour between the Woodford and the Derby will not be enough time to get a bet in, it barely is now.

something is wrong with this, i have never seen this happen. its always 1/10th of the dollar payout.

Dime supers actually hurt overall handle believe it or not. It detracts from the overall pools. For example, if someone decides to bet $50 on a race at your track, they'll bet $50. But, if dime supers are available, they might only bet $30 (because they can bet for cheaper) and they spend the $20 on other racetracks.

In a big race like the Derby, I don't disagree with them not allowing 10-cent supers, with so much money being handled.

I can understand them not wanting to offer dime supers at the track on Derby Day. I would hate to be a teller constantly handing out the extra $.60 all day long.

I don't see any reason why they couldn't be offered through ADW's.

or they could spend the $20 on dime supers in the next race at YOUR track.

what is to say that if your track didn't have the dime super that the bettor wouldn't have bet the entire $50 at other tracks?

I'd play the supers, but like many others here, I will be in attendance and adding them to the wagering menu could cause a nightmare at the windows. It's not unusual to wait 30 minutes in line to wager and still get shutout of a race. Think about what you have. 75% of the tellers are temps there for one day, and 75% of the crowd doesn't have any clue what they are doing. I've heard a lot of folks go to the window and try to call the horse's name instead of number.

This is a very naive approach and exactly the kind of thinking by racetrack management ( on a variety of situations ) that helps keep racing in the dark ages. Just because a change, in this case a popular one, does not pay immediate dividends does not mean it won't be successful in the long run. While takeout obviously doesn't change from $1 supers to dime supers, the dime super obviously allows more coverage overall for all your players, and probably rates to keep more money in action, and thus possibly raises the churn on this bet....which is what increases handle. Instead of the money from the pool being dispersed to a few bettors it ends up spreading it more thinly to many betters. Theoretically this is better for churn ( and thus handle ). It's early ( for me and this bet ) and over time it is highly possible that this bet will prove a handle booster.

It's also worth noting that the $20 you give as an example that is wagered at another track, through simulcasting, provides only incremental less dollars to the simulcasting outlet. One could argue that the few lost dollars are more than made up by keeping your customer happy.

Churchill Downs Inc. makes baffling decisions all the time ( did they not raise their takeout substantially on Pick-4s and, I think, Supers or Pick-3s for the recently begun Calder meeting? ) so this recent one comes as no great surprise. However, the simple solution offered in this thread of allowing Supers on only self-service machines on Derby Day seems to have alluded them. Do they honestly believe that the carnage of Derby Day will be further exacerbated by doing so? Or, more likely, did they not really think this through? Your core players should never be dismissed just because it's the one day you can do no wrong. Racetracks seem to make this kind of mistake far too often.

I agree that Churchill should offer .10 supers on Derby and Oaks days, even if only on automated machines or Adw. Oops, there won't be Adw

If I read an article correctly (can't remember where), you will be able to bet the Oaks, Woodford Reserve and Derby through twinspires and Xpressbet. Those 3 races are the sole property of CDI and they can offer those.

It went something like that, but I may be wrong.

I haven't seen any evidence to support your assertion that dime supers hurt the pools. What is the source for your information?

I, for one, play the bet in multiples, usually equally a dollar, to avoid the tax withholdings when I hit. I don't think punching the repeat button takes much time at the machines or the windows.

I don't think the churn figures are as high as we might think. People are not attacking the wager properly. If you walk around our track, the floor is scattered with $2.40 super boxes. Obviously, this is an ineffective way to bet the wager (and yes, all tix on the floor are losers to begin with). Personally, I am constantly struggling with the best way to play them and have almost phased them out completely.

I just sent you a PM.

you can go in the Gold Room at Arlington and find $10 super box tickets on the floor.

I had a guy yesterday at Keeneland ask me to 'borrow' 1.40 for the last race LOL that meant he either had 60 cents, or had a dime super that was sure to hit!!

I can go to the gold room anywhere and see $10 boxes, just like I go to the first floor anywhere and see $2.40 boxes...

I don't know what Gold room you're going to, but.......nevermind.

you implied that people were not playing the dime super effectively, when the truth is irrespective of the amount you can find people that don't play supers effectively.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not necessarily against 10-cent supers, and the jury I suppose is still out on whether or not they're good thing for the bottom line.

Personally, I'm a big proponent of fractional wagering; it can allow you to spread with a longshot that you might not want to invest the "full" amount on, and as Steve Crist has pointed out on several occasions, given the current IRS withholding structure, it's often better to hit these wagers in fractional amounts.

When there are only a few thousand people at the track on a daily basis, no one that really wants to get a bet in is going to get shut out by some "novice" taking a long time at the windows/machines. (That being said, on a day like Derby Day, I can see why some sort of modification might be necessary, but not banning the .10 super altogther.)

This raises another pet peeve of mine with NYRA. This past weekend I was at Keeneland, which offers a .50 pic-4 wager. NYRA takes the pic-4 wager from Keeneland, and I attempted to make a .50 pic-4 wager through my NYRA One account but was told that I had to bet a $1 ticket through their system. NYRA used to do the same thing with the dime super at other tracks until NYRA adopted the bet. This is an absurd policy, especially when the fractional wagers can be placed at OTB and simulcast locations. All NYRA did in this case was cost themselves $$ because I placed the desired wager on track at Keeneland rather than utilizing my NYRA phone account for that particular wager.

Just so it's clear, NYRA can't just offer these bets on a whim....they are required to get approval from the New York State Racing and Wagering board first. Whether or not they should, or would, do this is another question entirely...and a much larger discussion that, at least I, don't feel like having right now.

Those are usually mine!!

i didn't want to name names.

I'm not a NYRA basher (I realize that a lot of their problems stem from NYSRWB), but I doubt seriously that this is a RWB issue. After all, I can bet the .50 pic-4 at either Capital OTB or the Saratoga Harness track. It's pretty clear to me that NYRA, whether through acts of omission or comission, is depriving its players of the opportunity to place the wager in the amount they desire.

I wasn't insinuating it was NYRA bashing ( or didn't mean to ).

If the other places are offering it then I may well be wrong. I will check it out.

I will guess that if NYRA can offer them, and have chosen not to, it is because their Pick-4 is a $1 minimum and they don't want to lower it ( I could argue both sides ) and feel there is a basic hypocracy in offering one for $1 and another for $.50.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I simply don't agree with their view on fractional wagering.