What will be the long range effect of Racinio's?

[Roger]

I was watching Delta Downs last night and it looked like there may have been 30 to 40 people in the stands. I'll check out the handle and attendance, but how long will it take before people who own racinios realize that they don't need racing?

[LB]

Not very long, I would think.

[Roger]

Delta had $1,200,000 total bet on Thur and Fri nights. Of that, $35,000 and $34,000 was bet on track. The same numbers were bet at Evangaline this last summer. These numbers can't be good for racing in the long run. Almost no one showed up to bet horses, but the casinos must be doing great to support the current purse structure.

[going4stamina]

I think track management at racinos start to marginalize the horses as a necessity for the state's legal definition of their business, but not something they have to support. This leads to track maintenance, barns, track housing, and etc. not a priority for maintenance, when the casino customers are the main focus.

The other flip of the coin is that I helped with a "breakdown" study for a year, and at that time there was a much higher percentage of breakdowns at tracks with racinos than other tracks. Inflated purses for lowest level claimers didn't bode well for horses when connections gambled they could make it one last time for a piece of the purse.

This is why I support ADW so strongly--it is about the race product and horsemen and horses still matter.

[Dave C]

Like all subsidies, racino's keep incompetent managers in place in an industry that needs intelligent business people to rejuvenate and reinvigorate a business model that needs fundamental change. The racino's prevent the free market from forcing industry participants from making the tough choices and consequently will lead to the industry dying rather than being saved.