Guest Friday: Big Pool Bets

Friday is guest day at PTP, and this week I got a good opinion post on big pool bets. It is from a bettor who resides in what many people call the home of harness racing, Prince Edward Island, a province in Eastern Canada.

Recently the CPMA in Canada allowed tracks to be able to charge more takeout if they want to offer life changing bets. As we know, big carryovers create buzz, like the Santa Anita pick 6 and others. This seems to help the business get some press, and draws handle from existing players. Others like the V75 are sold in grocery stores in Sweden, as we discussed in this post below. Some people have argued that this would spur growth in the business, because lottery players, or newbies will begin to watch harness racing and be drawn to the bet.

This guest poster takes issue with that, and presents a case that this would not achieve the desired result.

Let us know what you think in the comment section. Would big sweep bets sell themselves to newbies, or lottery players? Would they grow the sport by introducing it to non-fans? Do you agree or disagree with this weeks Guest Post?

I thank the poster for submitting it, and if anyone wants to have their say, remember Friday is guest poster day, so let me know via email.

Here we go:

I am already growing tired of the talk of just how great a concept this V75 wager idea will do for racing here in Canada. Yes, of course you will increase the size of your betting handle with your inflated rake. However, if you think you are going to create one new racing fan from being able to purchase lottery style tickets over the counter you are sadly mistaken.

Lets for a moment chronically go through the life of the lottery player.

The first lottery in Canada started in the seventies to help pay for the escalating costs of the Montreal Olympics. As the games grew in popularity, they easily chased away the uneducated handicapper and the moderate gamer from the local tracks, who could now find their gaming fix at a far less cheaper cost and also was a much more time efficient way to get in their craving.

As the lottery grew, so did the demand to increase the exposure of the games of chance to the public. So what happened? They became part of the fabric of nightly network television. I remember as a young child on Wednesday nights mom sitting around watching ATV as the balls fell out of the drums for thirty minutes each week. As the years went by so did the need for the live nightly draws, as people realized what a waste of time it was watching the balls fall down the rack, with the beautiful women holding them for us to examine.

So what happened next, networks reduced the draws to live cut-ins during the nightly news to show us "tonight's lucky numbers". Over a period of time that quickly ended and the nightly news would just show us the numbers heading into commercial in the last few minutes of the program. As more time passed and the years went on that tradition stopped as you could now find the numbers the next day in your local newspaper, down at the store or of course on the Internet.

But hold it one minute, all this was not convenient enough for the fanatic number player. Just how lazy has the lottery player become? So lazy that it is to much of an effort to even now check your numbers, just hand the clerk your ticket and hope they are honest enough to let you know if you are a winner or not.

Surely to God this is the kind of person you think for a moment who going to wait twenty minutes for a race just to find out what the first number on his mystery ticket is? Yes, you are going to increase your overall handles, as the money crazed lottery player will play just about anything when the word "MILLIONS" comes into play. But if you think for one moment a lottery player is going to wait five hours to find out what the winning numbers are you are dead wrong; and if you think that you will make even a handful of racing enthusiasts out of this proposition you are "scratching" at the wrong surface.