To discuss several of the important issues facing the sport as a new year approaches, BloodHorse has assembled a panel of about 30 industry participants to participate in the 2023 Year-End Survey where they can provide their thoughts on six key topics.

The series concludes today with a question on wagering and attracting bettors. (Read the first four installments on racing surfaces, foal crop size, adjusting the racing calendar, HISA, and marketing.)

While BloodHorse realizes there are countless other voices that could have been included, the hope is that these answers will spark meaningful discussion within the industry. Anyone who would like to offer their opinion is encouraged to submit them in writing to editorial@bloodhorse.com for inclusion in our Letters to the Editor. Longer pieces can be considered for an Our Voices column.

TODAY’S QUESTION: With a changing betting landscape in the United States as more and more states allow legal sports betting, what can racing do in this atmosphere to bring more bettors to the sport?

Tony Allevato, president, NYRA Bets/chief revenue officer, New York Racing Association: You’re seeing companies like Churchill Downs, NYRA, and the Stronach Group partnering with sportsbook companies and I believe that’s the direction we all need to go because sports betting is here. It’s not going anywhere. If you look at the history of horse racing as other forms of gaming expanded, it never helped horse racing or expanded it or benefited it. So when horse racing was the sport of kings, that was when people were more closely tied to the horse and horse racing was the only game in town in terms of gambling. Then you had lotteries and casinos pop up and that slowly took away from the racetrack experience. Now sports betting is here and it’s going to be very, very popular and we have to make sure we can ride the coattails of it and capture even a small percentage of those people and convert them to racing fans. If we don’t do that, the people we will lose to sports betting because they only have a limited amount of money in their wallet will be a real negative for us. That’s why we need to align with the sportsbooks. They have a tactical advantage over the racing industry with their war chest for marketing and database of fans and we have to make sure racing is front and center with their offerings. Television is also important because there’s always more money to bet on a televised event and that certainly applies to horse racing.

Shannon Arvin, president and CEO, Keeneland: This year Kentucky legalized sports wagering, which kicked off in the fall and has been met with tremendous success statewide. Keeneland supported the sports wagering initiative to further our mission to attract new audiences to horse racing and teamed with Caesars Entertainment and Red Mile Gaming & Racing to launch the Caesars Sportsbook at Red Mile, Central Kentucky’s only retail sportsbook. Racing should explore how professional sports are benefiting from sports wagering and its ability to creatively adapt betting menus to develop new fans, drive interest, ticket and merchandise sales, and attract publicity for their respective sports.

Dr. Dionne Benson, chief veterinary officer, 1/ST Racing: While this is not my area of expertise, I know that our team is utilizing modern connectivity and touch points for the consumer to create a world-class wagering experience. An easy-to-use betting platform to allow new customers to understand how to bet – like we have with the 1/ST BET app – is a critical piece in the evolving sports wagering landscape. Horse racing has a unique opportunity to tie into the overall sports betting market and should consider new ways, such as offering incentives to entice those who wager on other sports to bet on horse racing. Again though, I come back to safety for horse and rider as the foundation for success across our industry – full fields with strong, sound horses is the best product racing can offer.

Louis Cella, president, Oaklawn Park: While our national patron base is becoming increasingly older, Oaklawn Park focuses on attracting a younger patron base. That simple. We market that it is fun and “cool” to attend the races – not to gamble but to have fun. We are in the business of selling horse racing, not gambling. We offer daily marketing programs for our fans to receive free food and free gift shop items and free wagers by simply showing up. We subsidize all our F&B items. We offer petting zoos and climbing walls for kids in the infield during our warmer months. We host Hall of Fame days where all national HOF trainers and jockeys are celebrated, and our fans get to interact with them and receive souvenir posters and can receive autographs and pictures with them. We sell horse racing and the pageantry surrounding this great sport. And our fans respond. In part, this is why we had over 17,000 fans (on Dec. 9). If we do our job correctly, the wagering part will take care of itself.

Dennis Cornick (Courtesy of Dennis Cornick)

Dennis Cornick, part owner of Flightline through West Point Thoroughbreds: From a business perspective, the most important piece of the industry is the handle. Without a certain level of handle, you don’t have a business. Many other tangential aspects of the business are fed by the handle. When the slots and casinos were gaining momentum, the industry found ways to partner with these groups and bundle the elements of both as a positive impact to handle. The sports betting trend in this country is far more impactful that casinos. There must be a creative way of incorporating sports betting into the business, whether it is the FanDuel model at the Meadowlands, or the co-mingling of select sports and horse racing bets and parlays, it needs to happen. Sports betting will only gain greater momentum and our industry needs to be on that train. Obvious other ways to attract customers are reduced takeout, larger rebates for various levels of players, greater transparency in the sport, and a positive overall perception. There also needs to be a greater awareness on the part of racetrack management on the daily decisions made at individual racetracks that impact horseplayers. I know several players that have left the game because they feel that these individual race-day decisions make a tough gambling game even more difficult. There were no better negative examples than several instances at Saratoga Race Course this past summer. Races being taken off the turf after certain pools are locked in, no ability to gain refunds, etc. This game can’t afford to undermine the confidence of the bettors with daily decisions, or the money will be taken elsewhere. Accountability and transparency is needed.

Brad Cox, trainer: We need to figure out a way so that you are not at the track for four or five hours. I don’t have the answer, but if you can shorten the time between races it might help get the younger fan involved. Racetracks also need to go back to making the racetracks more inviting for fans with a comfortable environment and amenities that allow for a more enjoyable time spent there.

Dennis Drazin, CEO and chairman, Monmouth Park: We need to increase and expand entertainment opportunities at our venues to encourage live attendance.

Drew Fleming, president and CEO, Breeders’ Cup: To capitalize on sports betting legalization in the U.S., racing must be offered on the same shelf as other sports. Imagine being a retailer in this day and age without having a presence on Amazon. We must put our product where bettors are consuming betting content. Our partners at FanDuel have been a leader in this effort and are the first sportsbook to provide their millions of sports-betting customers the opportunity to wager on racing from a shared wallet through their sportsbook platform. A rising tide lifts all ships, and there is an incredible opportunity for horse racing to grow its base of bettors by embracing this changing landscape.

Jim Gagliano, president and COO, The Jockey Club: Work with, not against, sports betting. We need to make sure the wagering on racing and other sports is available from the same app and wagering balance in each state as we see expansion of sports wagering. Continue to make it easier to bet on racing and use lower takeout as a marketing tool. The sport should also experiment more with fixed-odds wagering.

Eric Hamelback, CEO, National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association: No. 1: accessibility to free data. The statistics used in handicapping horse races are collected off our horses’ performances – yet those horse owners do not get compensated for the data generated. In other sports we are handed tremendous amounts of data that are accessible to the average bettor without having to jump through ridiculous hoops. Unfortunately, our industry has made a business of locking data down and selling it back, often to the owners themselves. At a minimum, basic past performances should be free online for every track and readily available to the public as part of the payback to owners. The strangled control of the raw data inhibits innovation, especially from younger, tech-savvy handicappers that the industry wants to attract. We must make our industry accessible on various platforms while still protecting the owners’ interests and investment. There is a future for different forms of wagering, such as fixed odds, but that cannot be done at the further expense of shorting our owners. On this topic, we must never lose sight that many of our sport’s owners are also huge bettors. We repeatedly have seen wagering on races as a successful way to attract new owners. I’ve said time and again that owners and bettors are the two most important groups in horse racing. I’m confident that keeping bettors and owners in mind with everything we do will lead to a far better outcome for the sport as a whole.

Joe Harper (Anne Eberhardt/BloodHorse)

Joe Harper, president and CEO, Del Mar: It’s critical that horse racing is offered on the same platform as other sports wagering options. It’s equally important that customers can use the same wallet to wager on horses and sports. Stakeholders in California worked very closely with FanDuel/TVG to accomplish this on their platform. As an industry we need to push other ADW/sport wagering operators to implement similar cohesiveness. If racing is positioned correctly, sports wagering can bring our sport to a very large and new audience.

Dottie Ingordo-Shirreffs, consultant, Thoroughbred breeding, racing, and management: We need to make the atmosphere positive, fun, and compelling. There should be cozy areas with big screen TVs showing games and racing where people can sit down, handicap, eat, and enjoy the day of racing along with other sports. Embrace all of it! California needs to get on board with sports wagering. For the states who have it, they are in a good position! This idea is just a thought, not a public idea yet. I’m just thinking a bit outside the box, but create some wagers based upon racing which are different. For example, an over or under. Add up the final odds for the first 3 finishers per the toteboard with over or under betting. If you think it will be between 5-10, bet accordingly. It’s just a thought but anyone can do this without knowledge of racing. The fan could bet and it would be treated as a bet with a mutuel payoff.

Lisa Lazarus, CEO, Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority: Bettors want to know that the product they’re betting on is fair and that everyone is competing on a level playing field. Through our national, uniform Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program, HISA is working to ensure that the sport is fair and clean while providing racing participants with a transparent, expedited, and fair process for addressing anti-doping and medication violations.

Ed Martin (RTIP photo)

Ed Martin, president, Association of Racing Commissioners International: The regulatory costs of HISA are already causing some small and mid-sized venues to explore alternative ways to have horse racing without simulcasting to escape the new regulatory structure and costs. Because of the quantity and quickness of our races, horse racing is a potentially attractive product for sports books. We have a ton of content and sportsbooks are proving an ability to market wagering on all sorts of contests in all sorts of ways. To fully benefit from this growing opportunity, racetracks and horsemen may need to not only move quick but rethink the existing business model. It would be ironic if an unintended consequence of HISA is that the extent of their increased regulatory costs may force the development of a new business model for small and mid-sized racetracks, their horsemen, and drive portions of the sport into partnerships with the sportsbooks. An evolution is surely underway and those who are flexible, creative, and entrepreneurial in redrawing what horse racing can look like will most likely succeed. But someone has to go first.

Graham Motion, trainer: Make it more interesting, carding 12 or 13 races on any given afternoon becomes repetitive and dull. Less is better. Let people leave the races wanting more.

Mike Mulvihill, president, insights and analytics, FOX Sports: Horses and horse racing are soulful. Online sports betting is frankly soulless. Racing has to emphasize the qualities that are more satisfying than just staring at your phone. Racing can’t compete with sports betting on either takeout or volume of betting opportunities, so fan satisfaction has to come from other qualities: the art of handicapping, the unrestrained fun of a day out at a good track, the enjoyment of being around the animals. Horse racing has to build its brand on the unique qualities that make it more than a digital roulette wheel.

Joe Orseno, trainer, president of the Florida Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association: Attracting new people to the sport will automatically increase the betting.

John Ortiz, trainer: Like with marketing, we have to promote wagering on the sport by reaching out to people, like college students. Show them what goes on behind the scenes and try to educate them, so that they are not just betting on their favorite name, number, or color. Maybe we can add bets on trainers or jockeys. You want people to have an enjoyable time. Oaklawn Park gives a bonus on some bets for betting on-track and more tracks should do that to encourage people to come out to the track.

Mike Repole (Eclipse Sportswire)

Mike Repole, owner, commissioner of the National Thoroughbred Alliance: We have to fix the gambling model. The takeout is insanely high. The odds can shift so quickly against the bettors. The sport is more focused on growing the takeout than growing the pie. Let’s grow the handle. Horse racing had a 50-year head start on gambling and if it was in a better position, even 10 years ago; then with all the new money with gambling on your phone we could build the annual handle to $25 billion. If we do it right we could reach $30 billion. It makes no sense that the bets we make in horse racing are the bets that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble made back in Bedrock. Why can’t we have prop bets, head-to-head bets, (jockey) Irad Ortiz Jr. with three or more wins on a card? People may not know what a trifecta is but they can understand the 2-horse beat the 8-horse. We could have odd or even bets. In roulette you get a lot of money bet on red or black. You can simplify betting to get more money into the handle. It’s not that hard. We are leaving a lot of gambling money on the table. It’s not only sinful but an embarrassment to the whole sport.

Tom Rooney, president and CEO, National Thoroughbred Racing Association: Sports betting represents a tremendous opportunity for horse racing and one that we cannot let pass us by. The next generation of sports bettors, who are making exotic bets and parlays from their smart phones, need to be able to bring in bets on horse races to get them engaged in the sport. The parimutuel vs. fixed odds betting structure is a challenge we as a sport need to overcome. It would be a huge loss to not engage these new avid sports bettors that are currently betting on traditional sports and bring them into the fold with horse racing.

Tom Ryan, managing partner, SF Bloodstock and Racing: We need to collaborate with other sports to create crossover events. Horse racing is a very intimidating sport in its current state, and gambling is inexplicable to beginners outside of a straight-win bet. I’m not an expert on technology, but saying we’re behind the times is an understatement. There is significant room for improvement in the product. Other sports have worked it out. We need to unify and follow suit. Sports betting is growing at a furious pace. Yet, horse racing betting is in decline.

John Sikura, owner and president, Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms: The world of handicapping is intimidating to the new fan. I am not an expert on wagering, but fixed odds, proposition bets, and innovative new wagering products should be part of the pari-mutuel platform. Odd-even bets, trainer and jockey titles are all propositions that could be wagered on.

Najja Thompson, executive director, New York Thoroughbred Breeders: In a world of increased legalized sports betting, we have to work to attract new bettors to racing by promoting the frequency of opportunities to wager versus a standard football, basketball, or baseball game. There are multiple of opportunities and ways to wager on a horse race in comparison to other sports. Education on how to bet of course is our biggest obstacle, but we should look to grow and lower the bar for new bettors by working towards the implementation of prop bets and fixed-odds wagering such as in New Jersey, that will help to lower the learning curve and help our overall marketing in attracting new eyes as well. The addition of more cross country and across track wagers as well should lead to increased opportunities and action to draw in new betting crowds who are used to wagering parlays.

Elliott Walden, president, CEO, and racing manager, WinStar Farm: The thing that comes to mind is access. We have improved our coverage of the sport over the last decade with FanDuel TV and FOX. We have to make our analysis more sticky. Maybe it is interviewing jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. before the card on his mounts for the day. Maybe it is pinning down (trainer) Todd Pletcher on which of his five horses has the best chance today. Continue to build the behind-the-scenes stories that fascinate the average fan. I was in a very non-descript hotel for the Breeders’ Cup south of Arcadia and was amazed to hear stories of fans that came from all over the U.S. to see the Breeders’ Cup. What drove them to be there? Do we know? A few recognized me and they were able to talk about horses with a guy on the inside. It fascinated them. We need more access.

Note: TOBA and The Jockey Club (through a subsidiary) are co-owners of BloodHorse.