Who Are You Talking To John?

[ateamstupid]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

Right... anyone wagering a serious amount of coin is currently receiving a rebate.

This is false, as others have pointed out. Rebates are great, but not everyone has access to them and even in states that allow them, the threshold for getting one varies. More importantly, rebates only reward volume betting, they don't reward winning, which is what the industry should be focusing on - returning more of the pools to winning ticket holders, because that's better in the long term for players of all bankroll sizes.

The quote is offensive, but it's just the latest in a long line of offensive rhetoric about horseplayers by the people in charge of the sport. The notion of sophisticated horseplayers who treat the game with the seriousness of any other investment is completely lost on most of the decision-makers in horse racing. Yet these are the people who are supposed to be looking out for our game when dealing with regressive government officials. It makes me appreciate all the more what NYRA has done in the past year, making an effort to listen to all of its customers and rolling out tangible improvements like the 15% Pick 5 as a result.

It's going to take a lot more than that to reform things though, and as long as people like Walsh are making business decisions based on what a few jadrools in the grandstand say, the battle remains a steeply uphill one.