Marketing?

Perhaps you've seen a commercial recently with "Brad".

Out of the thousands of players who play and have fun with DFS partake in unregulated gambling that everyone with law degrees seem so upset about, Brad, with "$349" in winning teams was chosen as a poster boy.

Awful Announcing found Brad and asked him a few questions. It turns out Brad is really a regular guy who plays some tournaments with friends for fun, and just happens to have won a couple of dollars.

That’s one of the main reasons my winnings were $349. To be completely honest, last season was my first season in fantasy period. I had a lot of fun and kind of got bit by the fantasy bug. Then I started playing DFS with FanDuel primarily. So probably just a little bit over a year ago. I don’t play $25 buy ins to win a million bucks. Mainly just these fun games between me and my buddies just to make the season more interesting.  Or I’ll play some buddies in a 1 on 1 heads up $1 game, because if I lost it in the week before in a season long game I can play then for getting back at them, or maybe I’ll lose again. It’s that kind of thing as opposed to using it trying to make money. A lot of people on those commercials, yeah you won $2 million bucks, you are gonna be sitting there every week putting in 900 lineups and researching these stats and doing that. I’ve got a real job and a real life outside of playing games on the internet. It’s just a lot more fun for me.

How's old Brad doing now?

 Those commercials were from back in April and that $349 was real, and I can tell you that as of a few days ago the actual number is $650. Like I said, I’m not blowing chunks of wads, I’m still the regular guy.

That's real marketing.

A newbie with a few buddies play a game. The game is fun and with a little work you can win a few dollars.

We read a lot about today's gambler and most of it is true. You have to work hard, study often and dive into a game to succeed. However, for the masses, they mostly just want to have a little fun and have a chance to make money.

FanDuel, DraftKings and other games like this offer that, and they're not blowing smoke. They don't scrape everything out of a pot. They don't nickel and dime at every turn. They don't make the betting experience painful (although AG's and some states are wanting to do just that). That's a big reason why they've succeeded thus far.

Horse racing, on the other hand, is an older game fighting an old tagline: "You can beat a race but you can't beat the races." "Bradley C" knows that and marketing this same way to people like him is a non-starter.

Changing that stigma, that tagline, will take reform and a major cultural shift for the sport of horse racing. Thus far that has been elusive.