Woodbine Is Attracting New Customers, But Won't Keep Them.....Unless

Bill Finley wrote an article: How Woodbine Is Attracting New Customers
Bill commends Woodbine for the newly formatted Bet Race Live. Very positive article. Woodbine is definitely onto something by going after the younger demographics who regularly watch The Score for sports scores and updates, and these are the same people who watch and play live and online poker.

The problem Woodbine has is keeping the customer. As I've stated many times on this blog, there has to be incentive to keep today's newbies, and that incentive is the realistic chance that if good enough, a player can actually beat the game over time.

Sorry, but with a 21% average takeout, that chance is non existent. Yes, you can beat the race, but with such an extraordinarily high takeout, you can't beat the races.

I'll agree with Woodbine's Vice President of Marketing and Communication Andrew MacDonald: "When it comes down to it, racing's greatest asset is that it is, if presented properly, a terrific gambling game. Sell that and maybe people will discover the sport."

However, in order to sell the game properly there needs to be visible winners. The price of the gamble (the takeout) needs to drop.

Horseplayers, especially new ones, will not become regulars if they can't get their bankroll to last. Most will be gone almost as quickly as fast as they signed up for the $24 in free bets.



Fort Erie Update
Fort Erie has applied to race at 4PM for the five Tuesdays in August. Good move. Should have included Mondays as well. This should be good for handle.

Looks like another major personnel change is about to happen at the Fort as the Consortium officially takes over on July 1st.

Really bad news for Niagara residents who watch HPITV on Cogeco cable. Cogeco is taking HPITV off their channel roster on July 23rd. They are also taking HPITV off the roster in other areas as well (though it sounds as if some Cogeco viewers in certain areas will still get HPITV). The reason cited to me this morning was that it is a bandwidth issue as Cogeco is bringing on another 10 channels and had to make room.

Conceivably, this move was based on ratings. However, there are more than a few people out there who watch HPITV for many hours a week, and these people could potentially switch to Bell. People are unlikely to switch if they dumped certain other channels, channels that get higher ratings, so maybe Cogeco will reconsider.

If this goes through, it will also hurt betting numbers through HPI as well. Watching races on a computer is not nearly as fun as watching them on the tube. And when the channel isn't there anymore, horseplayers might get into something else, and also find that they have more money in their bank account at the end of the week.


An event called the North American Cup happens tonight. No, it is not a soccer match, but some sort of big money chariot race at Mohawk. Read all about it at Pull The Pocket.


Humor Alert: Advertising Firm Says Table Games, Marketing to Dead Can Save Racing
Note to The Serial Horseplayer, you are missing the best online horse racing platform on your Top Rated Racebooks (when it comes to benefiting the Horseplayer) and that is Horseplayersbet.com:)