One of the all-time great musicals of the 20th century was "South Pacific," which featured one of the best comedy songs of all time - "There is Nothing like a Dame." This classic immediately came to mind as I read today's Blood-Horse.com piece by Jeremy Balan concerning yesterday's meeting of the California Horse Racing Board Pari-Mutuel and Wagering Committee at Los Alamitos.

    If you're too young to remember, it goes like this: "We've got sunlight on the sand, we've got moonlight on the sea. We've got mangos and bananas we can pick right off the trees. We've got volley ball and ping pong and a lot of dandy games. What ain't we got? We ain't got dames!"

     What does that have to with the California board? Well, we have leading sire lists, leading owners lists, leading trainers lists, leading jockeys lists, leading breeders lists, reports of mares bred, reports of foals, leading Beyer figures and much more. What ain't we got? We ain't got statistics or charts pertaining to many of the important areas that would make horsemen and players understand certain aspects of the game a little better. One of those areas is Advance Deposit Wagering, which was the main focus of yesterday's meeting, to which ADW operators were invited, according to CHRB chairman Chuck Winner.

    Wouldn't you like to know how much of the pari-mutuel takeout every track receives from ADW wagers and how much the ADW operators get? Or how much goes to purses, or to anything else? I know I would. But we never get to see those figures. All we get to hear is that the tracks make much less from ADWs because of what they have to give to the operators, and the operators complaining that they don't get enough for what they do. Nowhere in Balan's piece do we get a clue, and I'm not blaming him because we don't get those numbers from anyone. 

    Winner asked the ADW operators to come forward and address the group. "There are concerns - with respect to charities, with respect to the board, with respect to other aspects of the industry - what are the ADWS prepared to do?" Winner asked them. "Rather than us dictate what we think you ought to do within your licenses, it would be better if you made some recommendations to us, without telling us why you can't do those things." Nice speech, but do we have any idea what he's talking about?

    Brad Blackwell, vice-president of Twin Spires, then had a heated exchange with Winner. "California puts us at a disadvantage by strapping us with so many costs and not enough money to really do what we're able to do. If we were just operating in California, we could not justify that cost. California benefits from the costs we're incurring and we're having to make that up in other places." Again, I'd like to know more about what he's talking about so as to better understand the problems.

    Blackwell went on: "When I hear, 'Would we be better off without ADWs? I know for a fact - and this is from a company (Churchill Downs) that owns racetracks, owns a tote company, owns an ADW, owns a handicapping business - I know for a fact that, without ADW, those customers are not coming to a racetrack."

    Winner hotly disputed that statement. "You don't know that for a fact," he said. "What you know is, under the circumstances, they're going to the ADW and not going to the racetrack. If there were no ADWs, you don't know for a fact that they wouldn't go to the racetrack."

    Players in Ocala know it for a fact. I don't get to Gulfstream anymore because the 4 1/2-hour trip is just too much for my aching bones. I get to Tampa about three times each season because I get invited on certain special days. The rest of the year is spent watching TVG and wagering from an ADW account.  

    "One of the purposes of ADWs was to create more business for racing - more business for racetracks," Winner said. "That hasn't happened. It's been the opposite. The ADWs have basically cannibalized racetracks and on-track wagering in California."

    That statement is certainly not borne out by the facts. The North American handle from 1989 through 1994 was pretty much stuck in neutral at $10 billion-plus, and the advent of ADWs raised the total for nine consecutive years until it hit nearly $16 billion in 2003. It remained in the $15 billion range until the recession began wreaking its havoc in 2008.

    One major problem hurting the tracks, according to Thoroughbred Owners of California president Greg Avioli, is the number of people who frequent the tracks and still use their phones to bet. "We get essentially nothing back," He said. That brings up several sticking points. If you deny entrance to people with cell phones, will they still come back? And what about the customer who comes to the track, loses what he has in his pocket, and wants to continue betting via his ADW account? This is a complicated issue and neither side seems to have an answer suitable to both.

    Here's another area where we're all in the dark, and the talking heads in New Jersey keep talking and saying nothing that would lead us to believe them. Bart Barden, director of the U. S. exchange (exchange wagering) for Betfair, detailed the "success" of that betting platform at a recent symposium in Tucson. He said that exchange wagering increases churn while bringing new money and players into the game. Right. Cuba Gooding would have a good answer for that myth: "Show me the money."   

     

 

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