Quote:
Originally Posted by RichieP
Has always been around 33%. Times are a changing, shorter field sizes, year round racing etc etc
Here are current realities with Brisnet as the info source:
Aqueduct - 42%
Beulah - 40%
Charlestown - 38%
Delta - 34%
Fair Grounds - 39%
Golden Gate - 37%
Gulfstream - 30%
Hawthorne - 36%
Laurel - 44%
Oaklawn - 30%
Parx - 38%
Penn National - 50%
Sam Houston - 34%
Santa Anita - 39%
Sunland - 36%
Tampa Bay - 36%
Turf Paradise - 34%
Turfway - 34%
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Hi Richie,
Thanks for posting this. I think it reflects what most of us have been finding - that it's become much tougher to come by decent prices in the past couple of years.
I highly recommend Houndog's link to the Dave Schwarz video, which provides very useful charts laying out exactly how much the situation has deteriorated since 2002.
One of the things Dave doesn't go into here, is the extent to which whales are now effectively setting prices, and the devastating impact of rebates thereupon. When you think of the word 'whale' you tend to think of an individual, but as Dave pointed out to me in an interesting phone conversation a couple of months ago, the most influential 'whales' are essentially betting corporations, with many employees, using extremely powerful proprietary software a la Benter. Since they're getting much bigger rebates than are available to the average player, they can afford to hammer down the price on favorites and still profit.
The theme of our conversation was actually low-odds price movements, and Dave used the metaphor of a poker showdown between and among these large players, who are well known to each other, to describe the strategy behind these price moves. One also might use the metaphor of the game of 'chicken', if that makes sense.
I think the key thing for the average player to extract from all this is that your play and your software is as good as it ever was, but that the combination of whales, rebates, small fields, and lower handle, are making the game tougher than ever to beat.
Cheers,
B Jennet