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A view from across the pond |
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racing news /
US Thoroughbred Racing – Industry Losing Steam
13/09/10
The online gambling and online poker industries are apparently not the only ones left struggling these days. The plight of thoroughbred horse racing has been obvious for quite a while, although it didn’t exactly create large waves in the media yet.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see though how the more and more numerous tracks are less and less successful in attracting attendance and bettors. The problems are quite plain: there are way too many race tracks and race dates and the public’s interest has waned quite a bit in recent years. The ongoing recession seems to have been the last straw for an industry which had turned southward quite a while ago.
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The downhill slide is obvious in the numbers: from 2003 to 2009, the amount of money wagered on various horse racing events has registered a 19% drop, and it’s seen a further decline in recent months.
Of course, the lower attendance means that fewer horses will be bred for racing and thoroughbred auction purchases will head sharply south as well. This type of chain-effect means that things will probably get much worse before they get better for US thoroughbred racing.
The fact that several large organizations like race track owners and thoroughbred racing associations have filed for bankruptcy protection or contemplated shutting down in recent years, only piled on the evidence regarding the plight of the industry. The biggest problem and the very reason why most specialists believe numbers will continue to drop for a good few years is the aging fan-base of the sport. Let’s face it, the majority of those betting on the races these days are past 50, and for some reason, younger folks are not really keen on checking out the horses. Of course, tracks are already moving to counter the trend by organizing all sorts of events to attract the youth. Food festivals and concerts are surely a magnet for young people, but they have little to do with horseracing. Organizers hopes are though that once they make the trip to the track, people will find it easier to get hooked on the horses and on the gambling that comes with them.
Solutions to the problem exist: slot machines can be added to the mix, and many race tracks are already pushing to get one-armed bandits into their venues. Online betting on horse races represents a new type of approach to the problems the industry is currently wrestling with. Online betting would make hosting a large number of races lucrative again. There are several large markets US thoroughbred racing could break into overseas through the internet , including the UK where the horse racing is pretty much a religion.
For now, tracks have found that scaling back on the number of races they host (sometimes by cutting the number of race days per year to half), is a working ad-hoc solution to the their woes. Less is more apparently when it comes to thoroughbred racing, as purses for horse owners, attendance and betting volume all seem to react positively to the changes.
Signing up to an online horse race betting operation makes more sense these days than ever. Much like in online poker (for the best online poker rakeback and poker prop deals take a look at rakemeback and pokerprops.com), these online operators give their players sign-up bonuses and maybe even some kind of loyalty rewards, thus offering much better value than live sportsbooks.
