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Fresh Ideas from Up North and Down South

April 29th 2008

 2 comments

The HarnessEdge has good coverage today of the Wagering Conference up in Montreal. One story raises the issue of horse betting being made available in convenience stores (brilliant, if you ask me). Another one focuses upon a topic we've discussed before on First Over-- the poor takeout rates that make horse betting a less attractive option than, say, poker.
 
Then there's news from the Kentucky and the International Equine summit. Here's a quote from the Edge: "'A horse strides nearly 130 to 140 times per minute,” said Dr. Brian Nelson of Michigan State University. 'With that many strides, should we be surprised to have breakdowns? It’s amazing we don’t have more injuries and I don’t think we can completely eliminate them, but hopefully through wise management, we can avoid more of them.'”
 
Check them out and come back and let's talk about them. We've heard plenty of good ideas before-- my question now is whether the people in power in the industry are listening and able to do something about it.

Comments

Dean said...

I was kind of surprised myself that there were not a few US tracks represented. Since a lot of the subjects were harness racing centric, it might have been a good idea.

I was happy to see (and meet) the two people Kathy mentioned. A big push for the Conference (evidenced by one of the task force mandates upon conclusion) is to look at the exchange model. This model has proven successful in getting the poker player and price sensitive player back to racing. Perhaps more importantly, it is a rage with under 34 players. This model is being slowly spoken about by some of the movers and shakers in the thoroughbred game (recent Bloodhorse article about Bloodstock agent and part owner in Premier Turf Club Joe Riddell and others). Harness racing needs to be front and center on this, imo, from both sides of the border. I have spoken to several players who think this model, if allowed North America wide could cause race betting here to "explode".

Since most of the industry tends to be asking for alternative gaming, subsidies and the like, it might be the time to say to government "this is a delivery mechanism we need, we can fund, and we can use to grow our sport". I think I am not the only one out there who would rather grow racing to survive and thrive, rather than growing a bank of slots machines to.

I enjoyed my time there; as Kathy seemed to mention, it was not like many other conferences that I have read about. Much of it was outside the box, and with a game that still lives and abides by rules written in 1920, that has to be a good thing.

Dean

posted at 7:19 AM on May 3rd 2008

Kathy Parker, editor, The Horseman said...

Andrew,
I'm here in Montreal attending the Standardbred Canada wagering conference. It is being held in conjunction with the Canadian Gaming Summit, thus the overlap. I've posted my brief report of the first day on the front page of harnessracing.com.

I've attended almost every major industry convention there has been in the last 20 years, and this one has addressed the subject of Standardbred wagering like no other. Some of the ideas have been heard before, but never before in this depth, and never before have they all been thrown on the table, so to speak, in the same meeting.

Standardbred Canada (SC) has organized the Standardbred wagering meeting and done a very good job of putting solid speakers on the panels--very little fluff. The speakers have all had an idea to present, promote and/or debate.

The question on everyone's lips is whether the track operators will leave this meeting with a plan for any kind of innovation that can help generate Standardbred wagering gains. SC has invited 24 of the meeting attendees--track operators and others--to meet Wednesday afternoon to formulate a plan regarding which ideas they deem worth exploring. SC's leadership says its NUMBER 1 GOAL is to help develop business plans that can stop the decline in Standardbred wagering in Canada.

BTW, there are no US track operators in attendance. In fact, the only Americans here are myself, and The Hambletonian Society's Tom Charters and Moira Fanning.

posted at 10:52 PM on Apr 29th 2008

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