Harness racing better hop on the bandwagon!

A communique’ was received challenging the importance and rush to join the sports betting rage.

The exact quote was, “I have my harness racing horses here in (New) Jersey and there’s no better spot than The Meadowlands, a place I have been frequenting since the late 1970’s.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is EXACTLY the problem we are facing…one single individual aging in years (since he was at least 18-20 back then and NOW in his late 60’s or early 70’s today.)

Yes, we are all set in our ways! I haven’t tried anything new to eat since I was nine years old—70 years ago! Change is hard for many of us.

And, yes, I, too, love our sport and have since August 22, 1959, with Senator Frost and Su Mac Lad on the card—Sumie driven by John Peat!!

And, yes, I, too, am one of those aging persons that, one day, will exit the stage leaving harness racing with one less patron and with not a new one to take my place!

That’s life!! We lose one patron at a time.

When (and if) the right deals are made from the outset, sports betting is as important to racing as the internet is to technology and our daily lives.

Smart phones, banking online, scanning a code to cook a meal in the microwave, putting a USB port that can play 1,000 songs instead of phonographs…there are thousands of advances that have been invented in OUR lifetime.

It took other States in our country almost 70 years to hop on the bandwagon since Nevada initiated sports betting in 1949.

Delaware, New Jersey, Mississippi, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island hopped on in 2018. Washington, D.C., Arkansas, New York, Iowa, Indiana, Oregon and New Hampshire legalized it in 2019 and, since then, 14 States have joined the party since—the latest being the great State of Ohio.

Revenue for sports betting was a staggering $758,264,651 in DECEMBER alone with Nevada one of the leaders with $55,205,00 in revenue.

Why do we say, “one of the leaders?”

Well, New York legalized sports betting on July 16, 2019, and, in DECEMBER, 2022 ALONE, their sports betting revenue was $142,969,451. New Jersey was next at $82,610,771…and The Meadowlands is thriving! Illinois, where racing is, very sadly, on life support had revenue of over $82 million. Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana and Colorado were all over $40 million in sports betting revenue. And we’ll keep an eye on Ohio, which legalized it just this year.

Sports betting offers instant gratification in many instances and can offer huge payoffs on future bets—like Mattress Mack winning $75 million on the World Series. Look at the publicity sports betting got from that alone.

Future bets on The Hambletonian, The Little Brown Jug are more than viable options—not just industry wide, but worldwide! Baseball has sports wagering on balls and strikes…on whether a batter will get a hit or not…the over-under on runs scored. Will Aaron Judge hit two home runs in a particular game…Will Judge and Stanton homer in the same game…

How about individual quarter times for us (example :27 1/2)…Will Aaron Merriman win 1,000 races this year…What will be the combined time for all races on a single card…Will there be a dead heat on the racing program…Will there be a disqualification…Will any driver post a “hat trick” on the card…or a grand slam…Will there be any winner that pays $50 for a $2 bet…

There are a thousand more!

Take a gander on the number of prop bets on the Super Bowl—from the coin toss to the number of touchdown passes Mahomes will throw (over under 2.5).

Some people will bet on two cockroaches scampering across the street!!!!!!

It’s all to get and keep your attention and loyalty!!!

Of course, slot machines can offer instant gratification, as well, but the churning effect can slowly drain blood from the bank account.

By the way, in Florida, there are eight non-Indian casinos with seven of those casinos “holding” between 6% (Gulfstream Park) and 6.91% (Calder) and only one draining the wallets with an 8.16% hold (Pompano).

The argument for racing began in 2004 when co-worker Steve Wolf, Pompano Director of Racing at the time, and I, along with many horsemen and women, took to the streets to back up the proposal for casinos in Broward County with the understanding that racing would continue without interruption…after all, it’s a good deal for casinos and horsemen alike to spend $15 million on racing to make $115 million in net slot revenue!

Also, after a strong start in 2022 with double digit increases in slot revenue, Pompano ended up the year DOWN from the previous year in net revenue—the only casino of the South Florida “8” to show a decline!

It’s also significant to note that, after the Governor agreed to sign the de-coupling bill with the political dollars outweighing the rights of the voters, who voted for casinos in the first place, slot net revenue declined in every month from May through the end of 2022.

Think the absence of horsemen and women had anything to do with that?

Promises for new jobs over the next 10 buildout years would be significant—maybe 3,000 to 4,000 jobs.

What about the 10,000 to 15,000 livelihoods lost IMMEDIATELY.

The almighty dollar is what makes Polly-tick. And political donation dollars are the mightiest of them all.

So, as this sort of so-called “progress” takes hold at the expense of all racing—harness and thoroughbred—we’d better hop on that sports betting bandwagon and get as much of a deal as we can as racing struggles in America, especially in the east where legislatures always have the option to “steal from Peter to pay Paul.”

by John Berry, for Harnesslink