We'll often hear a lot about marketing (mainly of the push variety) in horse racing. Although I find that sometimes interesting, I think it often misses a big point about our gambling game, or any game really.
A couple of weeks ago on a Monday I flipped on the interweb stock screener and noticed a mining penny stock I was following was popping. Volume was up and it was trading about 50% higher. What in the heck was going on? Did they find a new mine?
It turns out the evening before silver futures were moving on rumors of the Reddit Kids pulling a Hunt brothers and trying to run the silver market. That trickled down to my little stock and off it went.
If we flowchart this for a moment it tells a pretty bizarre story.
Kids on some chat board talk about something. The wires pick it up, silver moves. Then, six hours later a small stock in Canada (a stock with the word "silver" in its name), with a float of 5 million shares and a market cap of $4 million moves up on huge volume.
Honestly, it really doesn't make sense. But that's what happened.
When people feel they can make money they search out avenues - even those as ridiculous as this - in a matter of hours and act. It never ceases to amaze me just how fast it happens, and how it happens. It just does.
In horse racing we're often led to believe we need billboards or commercials or marketing to promote the wagering aspect of the sport. But in reality, we just need to show people that they can make some money. That's what carryovers do - the ones where we scratch our heads and wonder where in the hell all this money is coming from for this Fonner Park or Century Downs Pick 5. Most of these people couldn't even find these tracks on a map.
If the sport does more to help users "make some money here" it'd be the best marketing plan of all.
Have a nice Wednesday everyone.
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