Just got around to looking at my updates from Harness Racing Updates and came across this article. Hits the nail on the head.
Balmoral Park's Handle Explodes
In 2012, Balmoral Park's nightly handle has risen close
to 35%. Its average pick four handle in January and February
of 2009 was $8,534. In January and February of
2012 it averaged $27,549 - an over 300% increase. Earlier
this year, its low takeout pick 5 (with a carryover pool)
approached a pool size of $150,000 - that's Gulfstream
Park levels.
For three days in April this year the handle was $3.4
million. Comparing that to the same three cards last year
at this time, the handle was $2.4 million.
Balmoral Park is no longer a "B" Track. It now inhabits
the same penthouse floor in harness racing that the Meadowlands
and Woodbine do.
In 1998 Richard Thalheimer of the University of Louisville
published a paper titled "An Economic Analysis of a
Parimutuel Racetrack-Racebook." In the paper he concluded
that pari-mutuel handle is mostly tied to price andf ield size; i.e. the contentiousness of the race itself. . In
2008, this study was validated by a poll of everyday horseplayers
conducted by the Horseplayers Association of North
America.
In a nutshell, those fancy surveys and studies from people
with letters after their names says something simple: If
you put on a good betting race (and promote it) at a fair
price, you will raise your handle. It appears Balmoral Park
got the memo.
"Competitive racing creates big average payouts and big
pools which creates a great gambling product," said Balmoral's
Michael Anotoniades. "This past year Balmoral
offered some of the most competitive racing in North America.
We average 33 per cent winning favorites which is not
only the lowest in harness racing, it equals thoroughbred
racetracks Oaklawn Park and Parx for the lowest in all of
racing for the first quarter of 2012."
While some executives in racing believe that if favorites
win less often, fewer people will win, hurting their overall
customer experience, I believe this is categorically wrong.
Harness racing is plagued with low priced winners, and with
25% takeout, low priced winners do two things: One, turn
off real gamblers looking for an edge, and two, destroy the
casual player over time because of high takeout and the
increased rake due to breakage via low prices.
Most everyday bettors agree. Ray
Schell is a fan of Balmoral because
there is no real bias. It allows him
to handicap a full race without looking
at factors that drive prices
down.
"Post position and trainer stats
indicate no clear cut stand out. This
is a major reason I stay away from
Yonkers and the Meadows, for example"
he said.
And he's right. If you look at the colony of drivers at Balmoral,
the lack of bias is apparent. There are six drivers
between a 14% and 19% win percentage, over a large
sample so far in 2012. Post position stats show similar, as
well. At Balmoral you can do things the old fashioned way -
bet the horse.
Low takeout has certainly made a difference, too. It is
very difficult for lower takeout alone to succeed, because
one track doing it with 25 or 30 other high takeout tracks
racing at the same time defeats the purpose, but as a promotional
vehicle it is superb.
"Low takeout, guaranteed pools and low minimums allowed
players to last longer and gave them a better chance
to win big," Michael noted.
Ray Schell agrees.
"Balmoral is a good gamblers track and with the new
improvements in takeout, it just got better."
The low takeout pick 4's and 5's, and the promotion surrounding
them, has begun to spin-off. The first races in the
sequences have all seen a handle bump. The exacta pool
on the initial race for the guaranteed pool this weekend
approached $70,000; higher than any pool on the entire
card. It's catching on and bringing more and more players to the mix.
"We like to think of ourselves as a gambling track, and
we want everyone to know we are," said Michael.
That is a sea-change for harness racing. Far too often
we're back in the 1980's with track press release after
track press release extolling the virtues of a stakes series,
or added money event, looking for mainstream sports
column inches. That's fine to do, but it speaks to insiders
and casual fans, not to our gambling customers. If the
race does not have a competitive field worth betting, handle
will be dismal no matter what the purse, who the drivers
are, or which horse is or is not in the field. Our customers
are driven by value - betting value.
This can be exemplified when we look at the Levy Series
at Yonkers. It hosts the best older pacers in the world,
and at a $50,000 purse per leg, the money for horse owners
and horsemen is fantastic. Every press release we
saw the past few weeks was about the series. That's a
slam dunk for huge handle, correct?
Last Saturday, the Pick 4 featuring Foiled Again, Blatantly
Good and Real Nice paid $4.95 for a dollar. A couple
of hundred thousand in purses for four races and we
have a $5 payout for customers? Who wants to even
spend five minutes looking at that sequence, other than as
a fan?
Balmoral does not have slots, nor do they have the
glitter of a high class stakes series to fall back on. Every
press release from Balmoral is about the dynamics of the
race itself as a betting affair. It's about free past performances,
the sequence of races, a guarantee, a big pool, a
deep field, and a potential big payout if you're smart
enough to do your homework.
Ray Schell's words are worth repeating: "Balmoral is a
good gamblers track"
If we card good races at a good price, we have a good
gamblers track. And guess what? A good gamblers track
attracts gamblers.
