Rainy afternoon on Cape Cod and I had a few minutes to kill, so flipped the channel to TVG for a quick flutter. I selected the filly Just Like Magic, approaching the gate at 7-5 as the recipient of a $10 win wager in the 3rd race Oaklawn (3/28).

She charged up the rail and won. Final odds were 3-5. WTF. Sorry for the crudeness.

Racing will never engage the next generation of punters with 15-27% takeout and NO fixed odds, when they can bet on sports with a 4% vig and wagers that are fixed.

In the UK, an extremely sophisticated betting market, exchange wagering in its 20-year history now handles 85% of wagers, plus or minus.

Further exacerbating the industry's vulnerability is the contents of this article. My takeaway from this article is that Stronach and his friends:

• Own racetracks
• Own offshore betting hubs for friends
• From these hubs, friends receive substantial discounts to wager into onshore pools
• And we can assume the friends are getting late, direct access to track pools… and perhaps entering the pool after the start

Now the late betting is speculation on my part. It feels like it happens. And from the first four bullets, it seems suspiciously like that might be happening.

This insider activity stinks to high heaven, not just regular heaven.

This beautiful sport is bucking these horrific headwinds of scandal and a less-than-competitive product. Yet racing will always have tremendous potential.

But what is the point of one laboring all night on PPs to arrive at a horse that one feels should be 6-5 or 7-5, only to see that selection drop to 3-5 at the quarter pole?

My introduction to racing was with Win Elliot, the Schaefer Circle of Sports, and Fred Capossella. Old timers can place an era on those names. My first Racing Form cost me 50 cents; what are they now, $10? I can make an informed wager on the Red Sox without that surcharge.

Sadly I am not sure that I'm going to ever see the industry make any real progress making horse racing as competitive and accessible as other wagering products.

Thanks for reading.

The post Letter to the Editor: CAW ‘Activity Stinks to High Heaven’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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But this is not the subject of my email.

The subject is betting on horses, and I had some success in this endeavor. In fact, after my Pick Six score at Aqueduct in January of 1992, I maintained a flat-bet profit of $60,000 for 29 years. The CAWS and past-posting and the drug problem caused me to blow all of that in just three years. I played a few more years and then abruptly quit betting horses (forever!) last September. After sending about $1.5 million dollars through the windows, my net loss over 37 years amounts to $35 a week. Less than the price of a ball game at Fenway Park.

The point of this email, however, is the aftermath of disqualifications. I can recall how angry this game made me and certainly other horse players when our horses were disqualified. We put in a lot of time and effort handicapping, and when we are right, we expect to get paid. And then we don't. This is the only sport where if your team wins you still might not get paid. That's not an attractive thing to market to newbies. “Hey, your horse may win, but you might not get paid.” This never happens in poker. But chopped pots happen all the time and it keeps the game moving.

Why do I mention “chopped pots”? Because this is the idea, I have to help horse racing stay alive. If your horse wins, but the horse is disqualified for any reason, you still get paid-but like a dead heat. You chop the pot with the horse that got moved up. Everything. WPS, all exactas and other exotics. Chop the pot. BUT ONLY FOR THE BETTORS. The connections of the DQd horse are still penalized the same way they are now. They lose the purse, and the purse gets redistributed to the connections of the horse who was moved up via DQ. But the bettors still get paid.

Maybe it's an idea already floated by others, but I hope that this idea might be helpful to the game that sustained me for 32 years. There's not a lot I can do to give back, so maybe this idea will catch on and suffice.

The post Letter to the Editor – The Aftermath of Disqualifications appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Premier Racedays is part of a two-year series of changes with the aim of growing British racing by 'increasing engagement among new and existing customers, improving revenues across all areas of the industry, promoting investment in the sport through the recruitment and retention of owners, and encouraging the best horses to be bred, trained and raced in Britain.'

Premier Racedays will be supported by marketing and promotional suppoer, racecourse marketing spend and plans for a national promotional campaign, pending the submission of an application to the Horserace Betting Levy Board in line with the body's funding criteria.

Premier Racedays through 2024 will also see the introduction of innovation in the fan experience on an ongoing basis, for those attending on racecourses, betting, and watching on broadcast. Over 90% of Premier Racedays are to be broadcast across ITV and encompass the majority of racing's best and most popular racedays.

The key areas of innovation include customer promotion, broadcast innovation, customer experience, a digital content strategy, promotion of horse racing's equine and human athletes and betting, to offer a variety of incentives around Premier Racedays. Significant work is also in development to improve the ownership experience both on and off-course, with initiatives to be rolled out in 2024.

“British racing's stakeholders unanimously agreed the way to grow our sport is to better showcase and sell our best racing. The pilot of Premier Racedays is the start of this process,” said Joe Saumarez Smith, chair of the British Horseracing Authority. “Due to the way that our sport is structured, the first priority for the sport was to put the building blocks in place in the form of the changes to the fixture list and race programme and secure the improved funding of prize money. There is little point trying to sell Premier Racedays if the product is not, in fact, Premier. “I am grateful to everyone who has been involved in the ongoing development of these plans, including those directly involved in the sport and our partners in broadcast, the media and betting”.

The post Premier Racedays To Kick Off at Cheltenham Jan. 1 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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A traditional $1 Pick 6 with a player-friendly 15% takeout, the Keeneland/Santa Anita Breeders' Cup Challenge Pick 6 will include the following Breeders' Cup “Win & You're In” Challenge Race qualifiers and be offered in this order:

Thoroughbred Club of America (KEE)–4:12 p.m. ET

Claiborne Breeders' Futurity (KEE)–5:14 p.m. ET

Coolmore Turf (KEE)–5:45 p.m. ET

American Pharoah S. (SA)

Chandelier S. (SA )

Rodeo Drive S. (SA)

“We are excited to offer a compelling bet for the horseplayer,” said Nate Newby, Santa Anita Senior Vice President and General Manager. “It's going to be a can't-miss sequence combining Breeders' Cup Challenge Races at both Keeneland and Santa Anita with a player-friendly 15% takeout.”

Players are advised that the Keeneland/Santa Anita Breeders' Cup Challenge Pick 6 will be listed as a separate wager/track on all tote and ADW platforms as:  Keeneland Santa Anita Pick 6 (KEE/SAP Pick 6).

The post Breeders’ Cup Challenge Pick Six Set For Oct. 7 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Handle is still down by 3.40% for the year.

The advances reversed a trend that began in October of last year. Handle fell by 4.93% in October and continued to drop over the next four months. From October through February, handle fell by a total of $263,808,165, for a decline of 5.8%.

The decline in handle has not affected purses, which continue to benefit from slot machines, historical horse racing and other non-racing sources. Total purses paid out in March added up to $94,783,996 for an increase of 9.16%. Through the first three months of the year, over $266 million in purses have been paid out, which represents an increase of 8.70%.

The numbers for average field size have kept pace with 2022 figures. The average field size for the year has been 7.59 starters per race, for an increase of 0.48%. And though many tracks have contracted their racing schedules in recent years, 6,977 races were run during the first three months of the year for an increase of 3.09%.

The post Wagering Does An About Face, Increases In March appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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He's great at getting publicity for himself and his stores, but never had he seen anything like what happened with this bet, the story of which became a huge hit on social media. In particular, B/R Betting, an arm of Bleacher Report, followed McIngvale from Game 1 of the World Series through the team's victory parade and captured the agony and ecstasy of each moment from someone who had $75 million at stake based on the outcome of a baseball game. Mattress Mack content amassed 75 million video views on B/R Betting, which posted the content on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. McIngvale figures he got millions of dollars in free publicity out of the B/R Betting posts.

It just goes to show that when it comes to promoting his business and himself, McIngvale has no equal. Because of his bet and the publicity it received, McIngvale became as famous as the Astros star players. So what advice does this master promoter have for horse racing and how can it better promote itself? Those were the questions we had for Mattress Mack.

TDN: In what areas should racing focus its attention when it comes to improving the visibility of the sport?

JM: People love gambling stories. Horse racing needs to do more to play on the gambling aspect because these young kids are fascinated by it. When I went to Philly and got into that famous confrontation with some Phillies fans, which was not my finest hour, everybody up there knew me. They all know me from all the exposure I was getting with places like Bleacher Report. Horse racing needs to have more connection to young people through gambling and find ways where people can win a lot of money. Absolutely, we should promote gambling more. In Philly, everyone knew Mattress Mack and knew about my bet on the Astros. They knew me because they saw me on B/R Betting or the Action Network or whatever. What's better? Horse racing or the lottery? There's no comparison. Horse racing is a much better gambling game and they need to get the word out about that.

TDN: You won $75 million on your Astros bet. There is no way for a person to make that kind of money betting on a horse race, even at the Kentucky Derby. What's your answer to that?

JM: No, you can't make that kind of money betting on racing, but you can make racing a better product for the bettor. Do whatever it takes to get bigger fields and lower the takeout. Figure out a way to get 15- or 20-horse fields like they have in England. You do that and all of a sudden you have a different game, a better game. We see far too many races and stakes that have five-horse fields with big favorites. People don't want to bet on that. Increase the size of the fields and give people a chance to gamble on a good product. That's all people want. People are fascinated with gambling, particularly with sports betting. You've also got to lower the takeout to compete. It's 5% when I make a sports bet. In racing it's four times that.

TDN: What did you think of the decision to retire Flightline (Tapit)?

JM: You have to have superstars. Retiring Flightline. I get it. They had to make the money. But what a shame there wasn't a way to keep him around longer. Football has Tom Brady and a bunch of other high-profile players. Baseball doesn't do a good job promoting its stars, but basketball certainly does. You have to create household names and get people excited about a horse appearing here or there. To me, that's really important. They have to find a way to keep these horses running longer so they have a chance to become household names. The game has to figure out how to keep these horses around as long as they are sound because everyone wants to see a superstar. Pay them an appearance fee. Pay them money to just show up, whether they win or lose. That's one way to get horses to stay around. We need more superstars like Zenyatta, who was still running when she was six. She stuck around and built up a huge fan base.

TDN: What's your opinion of fixed-odds wagering on horse racing?

JM: Going to fixed odds would be would be outstanding. When you bet at 3-1 and the horse goes off at 4-5, that's hard to swallow. I get fixed odds on my Astro bets. Fixed odds are the way to go so that way people know what they are going to get for their money. I think fixed odds would be a great benefit because pari-mutuel betting is too complicated for the average person out there.

TDN: What are some of the problems you see with horse racing as it is now?

JM: No. 1, it has to be more transparent. The optics on horse racing are not good when these guys get slapped on the wrist for these drug positives. That's horrible. You can't have people thinking a horse won because it was drugged. We've also got to do more to keep these horses safe. They've got to improve the technology. Dr. [David] Lambert has this device you can put on the horse and it tells you when it's going to red line and something is going to pop. That needs to be done in workouts and when they race and it needs to be done everywhere. When those horses red line and are about to pop they need to stop on those horses. All that stuff is doable. Dr. Lambert and I are working on what we call the Runhappy Wellness program. We want to get the racetracks to put these monitors on the horses so they can tell when something is going to go wrong. They monitor the baseball players and they monitor football players, so why can't we monitor these horses and make it as transparent as possible? The more transparent the better.

TDN: What are other sports doing right that racing isn't?

JM: Take a look at F1 (Formula 1 racing). F1 came to Austin, where my daughter runs a restaurant for us. They had the biggest two days in their history while F1 was in town. Five years ago, F1 was nothing. I asked a sports marketing friend of mine, how did F1 go from nothing to something, from the bottom of the heap to the top? It all comes down to a deal they did with Netflix. They told the story of F1 on Netflix and look what happened. It has turned into one of the hottest sports in the world. Racing needs to come up with some creative ideas like that. If F1 can do it, why can't horse racing?

TDN: Tell us about your experience with B/R Betting.

JM: It was incredible. Those guys do a great job. The guys from Bleacher Report followed me the whole time during the World Series. We also have our own social media team that runs our sports website, Gallerysports.com. The amount of hits was just incredible. They know how to make this work. You put something on TikTok and it blows up exponentially. It's just unbelievable. People like to see the agony and ecstasy of the big bet. They loved the story.

TDN: Your bet on the Astros was tied into a promotion you do at your stores, where people got mattresses for free if the Astros won the World Series. You had to give away an awful lot of mattresses. Did you come out ahead?

JM: I won $75 million and we sold over $70 million in mattresses. It's the greatest promotion ever. After the Astros beat the Yankees, that Sunday was biggest day we've had in 43 years. The following day, Monday, which was a non-holiday Monday, we did 25% more than that. I had to cut the promotion off because I had reached the max in insurance money, which is what I call my bets. I was filled up to capacity. If I had kept going through the World Series, we would have sold another $40 million worth of mattresses. I got $100 million worth of publicity off this Astros bet. The brand awareness of my business increased tenfold in the last two weeks. When I was on that victory parade with the Astros players going through downtown Houston, people were chanting 'Mattress Mack, Mattress Mack.' There were two million people there. How the else do you achieve something like that?

TDN: Are you optimistic about the future of racing?

JM: Yes, because there is so much opportunity to make things better.

The post How to Better Promote Racing…a Q & A with Mattress Mack appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The new three-day pool, which features $2 Win and Exacta wagering, will open Tuesday, Nov. 1 at noon (all times Eastern) and close Thursday, Nov. 3 at 6 p.m.

Technology advancements now allow up to 40 pari-mutuel betting interests, up from 24 in previous years. Track officials will release the field for Pool 1 following the conclusion of Sunday's “Stars of Tomorrow I” at Churchill Downs.

All told, there are six Future Wager pools scheduled in advance of the 2023 Kentucky Derby: Nov. 1-3 (Pool 1); Nov. 24-27 (Pool 2); Jan. 20-22 (Pool 3); Feb. 10-12 (Pool 4); March 10-12 (Pool 5); and March 30-April 1 (Pool 6). The Kentucky Derby Sire Future Wager, which debuted in 2015 and requires bettors to wager on the winning sire for next year's Kentucky Derby winner, will be held concurrently with Pool 2 on Nov. 24-27. The lone Kentucky Oaks Future Wager will coincide with Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool 5 on March 10-12.

Bets can be placed at Churchill Downs Racetrack, TwinSpires.com and other online wagering outlets and satellite wagering centers across North America.

The post New Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool to Debut Before BC Friday appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Back in April, Charlie McIntyre, the executive director of the New Hampshire Lottery, which regulates all forms of gambling in the state, told WMUR-TV that “They're not regulated by us, nor do they operate on any confines of state law…. It's a concern for us, obviously, because all other gambling in the state happens through us-either we license it, or we regulate it. In this case, neither.”

At that time, McIntyre estimated the amount of lost revenue because of TwinSpires not giving the state a cut of its betting business at “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

McIntyre continued: “They've been doing it for a number of years, and so it's a significant amount of money.”

TwinSpires customers in New Hampshire began receiving emails Sept. 29 informing them that “TwinSpires has elected to cease operation of its ADW Platform for Horse Racing in the state of New Hampshire.”

The email stated that TwinSpires will take wagers from New Hampshire residents on races conducted through Nov. 5th, the concluding day of the Breeders' Cup championships.

After that, the email stated, “Wagering will be suspended on Nov. 6th, and Players will have until Nov. 21 to withdraw funds from their account.”

A Friday afternoon query to Tonya Abeln, CDI's vice president of corporate communications, did not yield a reply prior to deadline for this story.

Nor could McIntyre be reached Friday afternoon to get the lottery commission's perspective on the TwinSpires pullout.

Back in April, CDI officials told the gaming news site casino.org that TwinSpires was “legal and compliant with the federal Interstate Horse Racing Act.”

A FAQ page provided in CDI's email to New Hampshire customers cited non-specific “regulatory changes in New Hampshire” as the gaming corporation's reason for vacating the state.

“As of right now we do not know what the future holds for TwinSpires as an ADW Platform for Horse Racing in New Hampshire but we are hopeful to serve you again soon,” the FAQ page stated.

In April, McIntyre told WMUR-TV that he had approached CDI about resolving the issue, but that “nothing has happened yet.”

New Hampshire no longer has live pari-mutuel racing of any breed. Thoroughbred racing ceased at Rockingham Park in 2002, and harness racing ceased there in 2009. The state had three greyhound tracks operating at the start of the 21st Century; two of them stopped racing before dog racing was banished in New Hampshire in 2010.

The post After Probe over Unlicensed Operation, Twinspires Exits New Hampshire appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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In his Breeders' Cup handicapping segment, Bianca lays out plays for Saturday's GII FanDuel Turf Sprint S. and GII Kentucky Cup Turf S. at Kentucky Downs, two Win and You're In challenge qualifying races for the Breeders' Cup. See below to watch the show. Click here to listen to the audio version at the TDN, or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post Seth Merrow Joins Bettor Things with Joe Bianca appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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This simple declaration was part of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA)'s five-year strategic plan covering 2006 through 2010, and published in 2005.

Approaching two decades later, there has been little progress on the topic, and recent wagering incidents in the summer of 2022 highlight the long-term failure to address these problems.

If you think the stewards are always in charge of stopping wagering when the race begins, think again. A new revelation suggests that primary control of some bet types resided exclusively in the hands of a single, off-site tote company employee, potentially in violation of wagering rules in numerous states while also exposing a staggering vulnerability.

Click here to read the rest of this piece from the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation.

The post From the TIF: Cross Country Pick 5 Past Posting Exposes Tote Insecurities appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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