Flatter: Kentucky sports betting magnifies what ails racing

Legal sports gambling got started in Kentucky this week. Howmany times did I see an image of the governor or lieutenant governor or a mayoror some other chancellor of politic making what was called “the state’s firstsports bet” Thursday?

First of all, there has been plenty of sports betting Kentuckylong before it had the imprimatur of legislative approval. Nudge, nudge. Wink,wink.

Second, we have endured endless yarns about governors makingtired bets against their rivals. To hell with job creation and crime prevention.When Kentucky plays LSU, voters will be better served by the wager of a case ofbourbon against a bag of beignets.

Third, isn’t horse racing a sport?

Dispatched by TV stations keen to cover this week’sspoon-fed dose of the illusion of news, freshly scrubbed reporters showed up athastily cobbled sportsbooks across Kentucky. They went live from ChurchillDowns and live from Ellis Park and live from Turfway Park. They dutifully beganall their sentences with “now,” and eventually, it was “back to you.”

The scenes have been similar in 31 other states plus theDistrict of Columbia as they will be, too, when Oklahoma and Wisconsin get inon the action. Nevada would have been included if not for the fact it wasbetting legally on sports so long ago, there were no TV journalists. They werecourtroom sketch artists who were reassigned from covering the Bruno Hauptmanntrial.

While I wait for Kentucky’s betting apps to be activated in20 days, I will wait for the new-bookmaker smell to wear off enough so I canfigure out who will be charging the most juice to make a football bet, bothpre-flop and in-game.

Funny how we in racing have our own terms for such things.Pre-flop is like a futures bet. In-game is like a play after the last click. That,by the way, has been tried in racing, but good luck finding a decent price onthat hot closer when the frontrunners go out in 22 and change.

Like racing, the juice is important to follow. You know. Thevig. The rake. Oh, sorry. The takeout.

Serious players in Las Vegas know good and well that the 10 centsof juice to bet a side before kickoff jumps to 15 cents once a football game isunder way. Players who are not so serious simply do not care. They are the oneswho are happy to make their bets in the hotel where they are staying ratherthan look across the street to see if the house is not skimming so much off thetop of each bet.

In racing, we were reminded this week how we may or may nottruly pay attention to takeout. Kentucky Downs, which deigned to raise its rakeby 1 percent across the board, inspired the gnashing of teeth, the wringing ofhands and the sounding of a boycott call from renowned horseplayer ChrisLarmey.

I get the point. When I lived in New York, if a midtown streetvendor charging me $1.50 for a bagel and cream cheese tried to ding me anotherquarter, I walked to the other end of the block and found someone else chargingthe old price.

Then again, the cinnamon-raisin bagel at the first place mighthave been undeniably better. Was it then worth the extra 25 cents? To draw theanalogy to racing, Kentucky Downs has big, quality fields and more value in itspools. In short, even though it cost more than it did last year, it has betterschmear, especially since the house still takes less than 1/ST, the New YorkRacing Association and Churchill Downs.

Larmey contends Kentucky Downs should not raise its takeoutbecause it gets so much money from historical horse-racing machines and has lowoverhead compared with tracks who operate permanent grandstands and stables. Theproblem is the HHR money has to go to purses and breeding, not clerk salariesand tent rentals. As for the expense comparison, that is like saying streetvendors should not raise their bagel prices if they don’t have to pay rent andelectric bills the way a bricks-and-mortar place like Zabar’s does.

The better point that Larmey makes is the long game. Racing’sdeath will be by the thousand cuts that come from the bleeding of betting poolswith ever-higher takeout. A little bit here and a little bit there. To me hisargument is more effective when he points out Kentucky Downs or any place thatraises takeout is joining the line of tracks that have piled straws on thebacks of horseplayers who one day will collapse from all the accumulatedweight.

That brings this whole discussion back to sports betting. Wantingto protect a horse industry that it commemorates on license plates, Kentuckyleaders decreed that racetrack owners be the interlocutors for all the new wagers.That applies whether the action is taken in person or eventually online, where94 percent of these bets are made across the country, according to LegalSports Report.

In addition to the $500,000 it got from each track for licensesthat have $50,000 annual renewal fees, the state will get 9.75 percent of thein-person bets and 14.25 percent of online wagers. After that, the splitbetween tracks and the likes of Caesars, DraftKings and FanDuel was subject toindividual negotiation.

Once all the introductory boost promotions run their course,let’s say the vig were to land on 15 cents for simple point-spread bets, orsides as they are known. That is still better than the 17.5 percent ChurchillDowns gets for win-place-show wagers and much more attractive than the 22percent for most others. Run those numbers by bettors who are choosing between CDand the SEC, and it becomes a no-brainer.

Tracks in Delaware and New Jersey were the first to get intobed with sports betting in 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court rubbished the oldlaw that prevented it. The jury is still out on how much horse money has beencannibalized in these partnerships.

If nothing else, Kentucky’s alliance of horse betting and sportswagering, make that other-sports wagering, is another clarion call for our gameto figure out how to make itself more attractive to new players. It is nothelped by complicated past performances and the pari-mutuel reality that whatyou see when you place your bet is not always what you get.

Contrast all that with a sports bet. You and I both know itis far more likely we will cash a 5-1 or 10-1 ticket on a horse race than wewill on a football game. But tell that to the Cardinals or Wildcats fan whodoes not want to spend the time to learn the nuances of pedigrees and speedratings and track biases and closing speed. It is far easier for bettors to figureout how they can bet $115 to make $100 if the Wildcats beat EKU by more than 311/2. Tell them it is cheaper than making a bet on horses, and they do not stickaround for the “yeah but.”

Rookie bettors and even us grizzled degenerates may not havehigh and higher takeout in our faces. But just like blackjack chips do not feellike real money, we ultimately figure out the subliminal effects of all thiswhen our pockets and betting accounts are not flush with money.

Eventually, the future of racing will be determined by theboots of gamblers. If they literally or figuratively walk away from the productthat is live at the track in order to wager on what is on the big screens inthe sportsbook, on those games on Saturdays and Sundays with which they aremore familiar, then the fate of racing will be sealed.