RBC, one of the big banks up here in Canuckland, released a report this week detailing that one trillion bucks left Canada the last ten years. This is nothing new for the movers and shakers, they've known this for many years, and have been warning about the consequences of the lower growth that followed.
While the headline screamed in some financial papers, a few folks have popped their heads up to notice, but it's kind of a yawn, especially in the MSM. One trillion is a big number that's hard to get your head around, plus what does this have to do with our daily lives anyway?
Likewise, it's kind of the same story with lower takeout. We've talked about it for thousands of posts here alone. There have been seminars and discussions and gambling conferences; just about everyone talked about it, at least intermittently.
But it's kind of always been met with a yawn. Purses up, handle down meant things were fine. We should be picking winners and not worrying about gaining value with lower juice. "I walked through the grandstand and no one knows what takeout is". The Fanduel bettors are betting higher takeout parlays, take that! The "takeout people" were not sharp bettors, they were "hawks" like we all wanted to invade a track in Grenada.
Even when a study or some metric was reported that showed how handle could increase, it was summarily dismissed. I remember when the Horseplayer Association arranged a boycott of Santa Anita after their takeout hike, the handle fell. One of the CHRB members blamed the losses on the upcoming Olympics. There was always something to pin something on; to misdirect from an important issue.
Just like a country needs businesses to invest to grow, an industry needs customers to. Lower juice means more money invested into the sport, which means a healthier industry. It's really not rocket science. But when we muddy the waters with nonsense, that simple equation is like fourth year calculus.
At the conclusion of World War II in Japan, the United States dropped one of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima. Due to the slower dissemination of information at the time, the citizenry primarily received unremarkable accounts and was largely enthusiastic about this new power. Support for the use of another bomb was high in surveys.
About one year later, as more information became available, a New Yorker article, complete with photojournalism, illustrated the dire reality in a 30,000-word piece. The article presented the facts without any editorializing. This piece hit the public square in the forehead.
The response was overwhelming. Support for ever using a bomb like it again plummeted. One article changed everything.
We've never had the "one article". The thing that said, here's the truth - let's get to building a modern game.
We've gotten misinformation, misdirection and frustratingly - modifying a system that says (wink, wink, nudge, nudge don't tell anyone), of course lower takeout works, it's why the CAW's get it.
It's likely the fight for lower takeout for every day players is over. Seriously, when a track like Kentucky Downs hikes the juice where it doesn't depend on the amount bet, it has to be. But to those of you who tried your best, I suspect you were on the right side of history.
There just wasn't a New Yorker article to share it.
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