Quote:
Originally Posted by randallscott35
Fun article, the only part worth highlighting
He would find the parimutuel system a serious curb on his fortunes. Bookmakers generally kept a cut of 5 percent; the slice today is on the order of 15-25 percent. He was selective, but he plunged when the odds were in his favor; in a parimutuel system his money would come back against him, his odds cut to the bone.
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There's a little more to his edge than just that.
If PG 1985 was born into that time - and didn't even know what he knows now - he probably still would have managed an upper middle class income from his betting profits alone.
It was a climate that favored the bettor more than any other point in American racing history.
Not going with a 5% takeout when the game switched solely to parimutuel is basically what killed horse racing.
Though, some could probably argue that horse racing wasn't truly killed until the 1945 takeout increase in New York, nicknamed the "O'Dwyer bite," Basically, takeout was raised from 10% to 15% in New York.
Handle dropped nearly 33 percent over the next four years, attendance dropped sharply, and horse racing lost its legitimacy. A game that could be beaten was reduced to a sucker's game. Also, in less than a year, hundreds of people were ejected and barred from the racetracks for bookmaking on the grounds just at NYRA tracks alone.
A hundred years ago - bettors like Plunger Walton were treated like Paris Hilton is today. The New York Times ran a very lengthy story when Plunger Walton's ADULT aged daughter decided to marry a man from Philiadelphia without his approval.
ESPN has tried to make the modern poker pro's of today what the press was able to do with horseplayers of a hundred years ago. I can name more than 20 Poker Pro's off the top of my head - and I think Poker is a boring and slow game for worthless chain-smokers.
But basically - guys like Mike Wilbon can justifiably get away with sh!tting all over horse racing on a network that tries to push it - mainly because the cries for a 5% parimutual takeout were ignored and because of the O'Dwyer bite of 1945.