What Can a Racing Gamblecast Look Like? Last Night Provides us a Clue

Last week after the upcoming demise of TVG (thanks everyone for reading, it was a very well-trafficked post) we spoke about how broadcast is generally dead, and new gambling mediums have continually taken over the space. 

I'm not sure I have ever been hit over the head harder with it than last evening. 

Rob, his young son and the Athletics' Austin Mock

I followed the NFL Draft as closely as I ever have, and I didn't watch one nanosecond of network coverage. While I had the NHL playoff games up on the main screen, I spent three hours watching an NFL Draft gambling stream on my laptop with the guys at the Hammer Betting Network. 

Watching this stream provided me a couple of benefits:

The hosts are professional gamblers who not only had knowledge about the draft and were betting it, they were in-tune with what was going on in real time. The networks were sometimes three picks behind them. They were tied into feeds that were reporting picks well in advance. 

This presented a betting opportunity. While the sportsbooks were changing their picks odds array four or five picks ahead, we were on the same level playing field. They were not ahead of those of us watching. So, if they made a mistake in their lines - which happened several times - we could pounce quickly. In horse racing we battle the CAW's, watching this live-stream, we were the CAW's. 

Of course, like any picks, these were sometimes in the "right Church, wrong pew", but I am pretty convinced I got positive EV on virtually every real time pick bet I made last night. And I am absolutely no draft expert. 

All of this was achieved by a few guys sitting in an office in Toronto talking about the draft for a sport they love to watch and bet. 

I love Mel Kiper, I love the high production value at ESPN, but watching it feels like the stone age to me after last evening. 

I'm sure they will continue to work on this broadcast - one minor criticism I had is they could've had someone scanning the books for lines on picks ahead, and offered flash opinions on prices more often, for example - but it was entertaining and informative, and most of all fun. 

I do feel strongly that in the future (present), network broadcast is not going to cut it for gamblers. It's great as a fan to watch a clip of a faceless offensive lineman doing a pancake after a pick, but to me, if I've seen one I've seen them all. I want to see picks in real time, not ten minutes behind, and most of all - I want to make some money. 

What this can look like for horse racing? As I've noted before, I am not Pocketstradumus here, so I am not really sure. But it feels like there is something there. There's some way to present this in a new way. We play one of the most exciting gambling sports in the history of the world, one thinks there would be. 

If the sport wants to look for a clue, last night's NFL Draft gamblecast should provide a few. 

Have a nice Friday and weekend everyone. Good luck with your bets. 

The Horse Corporation Makes Moves (and so Do the Degens)

Death Star news hot off the presses -- CDI has purchased the 'intellectual property' for the Preakness (and Black Eyed Susan) from Stronach for $85 million (almost a whopping eight Flightline two year olds). 

What's that mean? I'm not totally sure what CDI does with it, but I think it tells us something about 1/ST racing, i.e. the divestment plan is very real. 

Corporate entities have the chops to run with something like this - Sony Music bought Springsteen's stuff, not @angryyankee from Jersey - while single type proprietorships generally don't. In the long-term it's not hard to imagine this working out for the Death Star. 

CDI CEO Announcing New Bets

In other Horse Corporation news, ladies and gentlemen, The Corporation has brought you new bets. To great, or maybe not so great fanfare, we have, for the spring meet, odds and evens and match up bets. 

The warm and cuddly one broke down the math:

That's ummm, not really very good. But in horse racing land, where the sport is scared of its own shadow, it's probably expected. After all, the only way exchange wagering was tried was if the juice was astronomical. 

It's very hard to understand, for me anyway, why each and every time, the sport takes zero chance on a wager. The odd/even bet is clearly targeted to newbies, probably playing the two big upcoming cards which make up most of the meets newbie handle. I get charging some juice. 

But the match-up bets could really attract some gamblers who don't normally play this sport. 

Different cohorts, the same price. I think they should write that on the sports' epitaph.

On the bright side of the moon, we have betting degen, the (second) best racecalling horse driver in the United States, and guy who sold a bachelor pad in Lexington worthy of Charlie Sheen's character in Two and a Half Men - Gabe Prewitt. He runs Hoosier Park, and he noticed (again because he's a degen like us), that the hole giving at Hoosier was startlingly insane. 

Thanks to @RacingBeard for reaching out & a BIG thank you to those that raced Friday night that put on a first class show https://t.co/sBlx2fuexK

— Gabe Prewitt (@gabe_prewitt) April 19, 2026

Gabe, unlike most, decided to do something about it. Because he knows the game so well, and cares about it, let's hope the early reaction from participants - Gabe is a #%$)@*)$ - is more mellow, and they try to comply. 

Change is hard in horse racing. Every new bet has to have the juice of a state lottery; every change to how the game is presented is either dismissed out of hand or considered heresy where the perpetrator should be burned at the stake. 

I don't hold out hope the Corporate Entity will change, but maybe little ol Gabriel can get the job done.

Have a nice Tuesday everyone. 

Lower Juice Never Hit Us Right Between the Eyes

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.