There was a story on the BH today about the first few days of fixed odds betting at Monmouth. The article touched on the slow ramp-up and didn't mention juice, which we believe is pretty high.
What I took most from the story was that they're kind of making this up as they go along, and quite honestly, I don't think that's a bad thing. This sport tends to be about setting a price that has absolutely nothing to do with a market, and then moving it higher. Fiddling around and setting benchmarks and baselines is what business does, so it's kind of acting like one.
The contrast between what Monmouth and Betmakers is doing is palpable, when we look at what happens in Canada with Woodbine's pricing. WEG's mechanism is so archaic, suppliers are written into the pricing contract - "horsepeople get 4% of tri wagering", for example. This leads to the un pari-mutuel pool system throughout the land, whereby some U.S. tracks have their juice juiced up, putting Canadian horseplayers at a tremendous disadvantage. It also causes great problems when tracks - like Canterbury - do the right thing and offer low takeout bets like their 10% pick 4. Woodbine doesn't even have it on the menu.
When you can't offer a fair deal to your customers - an entire country - because of archaic, egregious policy like this that you haven't rewritten to get in-step with the modern betting world, you're not a betting business, you're a government entity. And you deserve every customer you lose.
I have no idea where fixed odds at Monmouth is headed. Perhaps they get killed by sharp players, maybe the big tracks don't allow Monmouth to offer their product. Maybe the robber barons of high takeout (who are obsolete, even though some don't seem to know it yet) make unreasonable demands so it all dies in yet another dumpster fire. But, starting the way they have and modifying their pricing and offering based on demand and potential profit, is probably a good way to get out of the blocks.
Have a good Friday and weekend everyone.
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