Quote:
|
Originally Posted by tzipi
Sadly the track does not make it welcoming anymore to attend. Parking fee, entrance fee, high food and beer/liquor prices. OTB is cheaper to go to
|
That was definitely true for $10 bettors and less at NYCOTB. The amount of surcharge some people were paying at OTB was way less than the cost of going to the track. People intuitively knew that even if they weren't the type of person that would calculate it.
I have no idea what they are trying to accomplish. But I'd like to see what would happen in they reversed that dynamic. I generally like the on track experience, but if you gave me rebates for on track bets only that exceeded what I could get off track (call it an extra 1%-2%), you could get me to go more often. That would probably be true of many others also.
That might accomplish two things.
1. It would effectively lower the take and test if that increased handle overall
2. It would encourage on track attendance.
I don't know how hard it is to implement things like rebate changes compared to broad "take" changes, but if it's easier it's an experiment that might shake things up a little. As it is now, there's no reason to go to the track unless it just happens to be a beautiful say or there's a big race you want to see live. You can put all your bets in from anywhere.
