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Isn’t this a very similar business model that greyhound racing tried 20+ odd years ago? Who in the BHA looks at the way that turned out and thinks “yep, that’s the way to save horse-racing”?
I’m not sure that any of the decision makers currently employed by the BHA were out of short trousers twenty years ago, Tonge.
The problem is that the racing authorities have given in to bookmakers and ignored the racing enthusiast. It is all about trying to boost betting revenue. Racing enthusiasts cannot make head or tail of anyhing to do with this type of racing. You have low grade handicaps ridden by jockeys who don’t usually ride the horse they are given. So racing enthusiasts will not bother having a bet. On the other hand 18 to 21 yo’s have no
experience so the only way to get them to bet is to get them drunk first.I agree with many writers here – the Racing League cannot last.
The problem at the heart of all such promotions is answering satisfactorily the question, ‘what is it we are trying to do?’
A marketing plan to build an ever-growing base of racing fans who will bet on the sport would need many millions in cash each year, ongoing. Think of the budgets of the major bookies. These don’t involve short term racing league-like promos amidst nothing else. Nor do they have three year or five year plans. They need to pump in hundreds of millions year after year and that’s just for one brand. Here’s a quote AI generated, as Bet365 are a private company:
“2023 (Fiscal Year Ending March 2024): Marketing-driven administrative expenses contributed to elevated costs, but no isolated figure is available. Total admin expenses were part of a broader £2.31 billion outlay (up 18% YoY), with reports explicitly citing “significant costs for raising brand awareness in new markets” as a key driver of an 88% profit drop the prior year. This suggests marketing spend in the £400-500 million range (~$500-630 million USD), based on historical patterns and sector averages (27% of revenue).”
So, what is it the RL and such-type campaigns are tring to do (remember city-racing?). Pick a relatively small demographic – 18-25 students/student-types to pay at the gate on a Friday night so they can buy alcohol and party in unusual surroundings. Or, if they do not want to go racing stay home (on a Friday night) to watch on ITV and maybe place a few bets. If they are exceptionally lucky, organisers might make permanent racing fans from 10% of new attendees. What that does for racing’s long term future is likely a drop in the ocean. I suspect ITV are involved purely for the AD revenue from bookies.
Racing will never have the budget it needs bar a revolutionary tote monopoly. These small promos would be much better pooled to set up a biographical database – based perhaps on Timeform’s data – of every racehorse in training. Each bio should be updated by owners, trainers, grooms and comments allowed from the public. Everywhere a racehorse appears in public (cannot believe this does not happen on racecourses) it should wear a lycra neck sleeve bearing its name and a qr code link to its bio on the national database. This would be a relatively cheap way to help build lifelong fans, and promote syndicate ownership.
I am not sure any of these initiatives to attract more young people to racing actually work. Isn’t racing something people discover through watching it on television or (more likely) through family or friends?
I get the idea of student days. Although based on two in Ireland where I happened to be present, most of students were only there for the party and the drink. Very few ventured to see the horses in the paddock and fewer still were having a bet.
How many of these ideas have there been now? Aside from the Racing League, there has been Racing for Change; the widely mocked Jermaine Jenas video; and a breathless video earlier this year which did at least show some horses and mentioned a jockey (Hollie Doyle) but was mostly about the socialising.
Something that bothers me about all these ideas is no one ever seems to mention what is for most people the key part of the sport’s appeal: having a bet. I know the modern media doesn’t like betting, nor does the government or puritanical political activists. But without betting, where is racing’s funding going to come from? People boozing in the bar is all well and good but that is not going to help the sport in the long term. Without betting, it has no future.
The way to attract more people to go racing is to make it less of a lottery and give punters a chance by bookmakers not taking excessive overrounds. Overall, many overrounds have been reasonable recently, except at Kempton where they have been excessive. Punters should NEVER back at SP, but rather back at Tote odds. This aasumes the stake is relatively modest. The reason for this is that (currently until they change it) the Tote dividend is guaranteed to be equal to or better than SP. If the bookmakers at Kempton continue to take excessive overrounds then the Tote dividends in many races will be better.
Value31,
The SP system in use now takes no account of the prices offered by racecourse bookmakers. It’s based solely on prices offered by online firms. Been this way for several years.
The details on the procedure are available here:
http://www.thesprc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Rules-for-Returning-the-SP-Final-Clean.pdf
Apracing, I get the point you make. In my experience the SP is often equal to or better than the odds offered on-line by my bookmaker. Based on this, anyone betting on-line should do so at Tote odds. My on-line bookmaker also cancelled ‘my best odds guaranteed’ which is why I stopped betting on horses.
Given the overrounds are based on the average of an nunber of on-line bookmakers I cannot believe the on-course bookmakers would offer substantially better odds where such overrounds were excessive.
Also, in recent years there seems to be less variety in the on-course odds offered.
For these student nights to take off, the youngsters going need to be able to know what the outcomes of their bets are going to be before placing them. And probably introduced to multiples and permutation type bets. A student who’s paying 10k a year for a very average degree is going to be more enticed to betting if they can see the returns of a treble at the moment they place it.
So self service terminals at the like of Southwell, wolves and Newcastle which offer the various doubles, trebles, lucky 15’s super Heinz type bets are a good way to give them some level of understanding of betting.
Once they’ve bet on a horse they then have a vested interest in the race. That could be the start of something. I would still have my doubts though.
I have been following racing for 60 years amd I know the most certain way to lose money is to do ACCA’s. I agree that many youngsters are paying £10k per year to gain a dubious degree, but we should not encourage them to lose even more money.
My bookmaker regularly sends me messages offering me a free ACCA if I bet 3 other ACCA’s. They gave an exanple of a wonderful ACCA comprising 4 short priced favourites in the day’s football matches. Now I know the odds are 1/10 that at least one of these favourites will fail to win.
The rule is simple- if a bookmaker is offering an amazing deal – IGNORE it as there is bound to be a catch. We should encourage everyone to bet sensibly.
I totally accept you’re right value31.
However there has to enticement to bet small win big. That’s the fantasy for all of us isn’t it?? A ten pound 7 race acca that pays 367k as opposed to betting £2 a race for a return of jack ****.
Once people begin to understand a bit more about betting then of course they will learn that long term to turn a profit accas are a waste of time, but it’s a way to show them the fun side of racing. Then they (hopefully) begin to take an actual interest in the sport, not just the gambling side of things.
I think the way forward is to give punters a chance to win big without breaking the bank. I used to do Tote Dual Forcaats (1st and second in any order), it was possible to win £100 for a £1 stake a few times. Then they got greedy and changed it to Exactas so you had to double your stake. In the good old days we had the Tote Double (3rd and 5th races) and Tote Treble (2nd,4th and sixth races). You only needed to get one up occasionally to keep the interest up. The beauty was you did not have to put the double or treble on at the beginning, but select as you went along. But, of course, these bets are no more.
Every change made was aimed at extracting more cash from punters by making it more difficult for them. Using the ‘bingo’rule the marketing department has a field day. As any bingo organiser will know the majority leave being ‘one off’. The cards are designed that way. So you go back believing it must be your turn next time as you were so close, not realising that nearly everybody was so close. It is the same with ACCA’s, bookmakers know that if they advertise a short price foursome that it is likely one will go down. ACCA’s should be avoided.
I agree with Tizzards when he says that dangling a big win for small outlay in front of very casual punters has potential for creating deeper interest especially with lottery style “lucky dips” and consolation prizes. IMO the best way of doing that is via Tote pools (as value31 mentions) but we all know that isn’t going to happen for a variety of reasons.
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