We spoke before about a poker site promoting the "Chris Ferguson Challenge" where he starts with zero dollars in his poker account and he tries to turn that bankroll, with skill, into $10,000. We said that this promotion - making money at the game trumps just about every marketing angle out there. If people can make money, they will come. In what seems to be a world away there is a young fella who is trying to make GBP150,000 at racing in 2009. Yes, racing.There is plenty eye-opening about this. 1) How many people in racing even think for a second they could make $300,000 in one year through the pari-mutuel system? Try it. Go to a chat board and state that you are going to make US$300k and see what type of responses you will get. You will be called nuts, crazy, and people will be posting weblinks to their psychiatrist for you. 2) Adam Heathcote, the lad who is trying this (after having a successful 2008), is only 23 years old. So much for the 'racing is for old folks' mantra. And 3) He just learned how to play racing last year.
Examples such as this tell us that racing is a good bet, if done right - after all Adam is not playing racing through bookies or betting the Tote - he is playing at an exchange. It clearly is not done right here in North America. Unless we change, we will never see this type of blog here across the pond. People do not think they can win at racing, and this is probably our biggest hurdle in attracting people like Adam. The point is not if he wins $300k, but that he thinks he can make $300k.
Good luck Adam on your quest. Racing needs more people like you.
4 comments:
Nice Post-but one question.
What do you think about the challenge of marketing betting to the average person mainly because it is a much harder game to bet than poker, card games and of course lottery tickets, lottery games like Quick Draw or slots? I read the blog you have linked to and have to admit the "exchange/trading" he talks about seemed very, very confusing too me. The learning curve to learn this "skill" is long and time consuming, and I just feel alot of people get scared from even trying.
Holy Sh**!
That is going on my follow list.
Spaster,
Nice to hear from you. I enjoy your blog.
If you look at his post he mentions that he took a betting course just last year, learned racing and went from there. The learning curve is not horribly steep when you are trading, or playing the game. It is what I envision for racing for some of these folks who enjoy playing the game - a course that they can use. Etrade does this. There are moms and pops without grade 11 that are playing the markets, learning stochastics, moving averages and everything else. They got hooked and took some online courses, and did some reading.
This is a great freaking game. I wish we'd do more to hook people into it. I find poker so boring compared to racing. I wish more people could come under our tent and maybe feel the same way.
"This is a great freaking game. I wish we'd do more to hook people into it. I find poker so boring compared to racing. I wish more people could come under our tent and maybe feel the same way."
The Takeout Is Way To High For That To happen!
Post a Comment