Equibase Rating Systems, Dumbed-Down Telecasts? This is a Complex Game, We Should Start Acting Like it

Equibase, to its credit, announced a new rating system for Thoroughbreds last week. This dovetails, somewhat, the rating system in Europe, as well as the Trackmaster rating system in harness racing. 

The reviews are plentiful and mostly not overly complimentary. 

The problem with this rating system, or ratings in general in horse racing, is that the game is really, really hard. 

Pinnacle Sports, which has been around forever with hundreds of billions of betting handle, dipped their toe into offering fixed odds awhile back. It might've been the quickest run to the exits in the history of bet offerings. They couldn't make it work. 

Odds lines, power ratings, how fast is horse A versus horse B with limited sample size is always a problem (especially with lower class stock). The game is difficult, even for the very best. 

Dumbing down such a complex game into a number is achievable, yes, but in most cases you aren't going to end up with an optimal number. 

We as humans like to dumb down just about everything because the human condition wants to live with heuristics or a few simple rules.  It makes us feel better. 

We see a lot of it in horse racing telecasts with rudimentary analysis ("this horse is dropping in class, this horse has a driver or rider change"), easy math ("tough race, hit the all button"), or dumb bets like Racing Roulette (I barely remember what that was, but I remember it wasn't good). 

It's been written here and elsewhere - where people are probably smarter and use better grammar - so I guess it's no use to go over how dumbing down the complex is like sticking a spoke in the wheel of a ten speed. Nor is it any use explaining why a hard game is an edge not a liability. If you read this blog you probably agree already. 

But I guess it could be worth touching on what a successful ecosystem in a complex game should be.

The answer to this question in a twitter thread is, I think fundamentally correct.

In summary, your skill game being hard is an asset and the difficulty of the game provides a breadth - the super sharps, the casual sharps, and the entertainment types. Where your game is sustained is how these three groups are handled. The super sharps can not have so much of an edge that they kill everyone else off. The sharp casuals need to be able to navigate the game in a sharp way, and grind their bankrolls, trying to get better. And finally, the fish can't be led to slaughter - they need to stick around and roll over their banks.

Horse racing clearly doesn't do this well. The CAW's have such a huge edge they're feeding on everyone. The sharps can't complete near as well. And the super casuals, for crying out loud - we're asking them to bet television pick 5 tickets and hitting the all button. 

I believe we need to embrace the toughness of the game, and build the game around it. Equibase ratings are hard. The game itself is hard. If we make this our default, the way we educate new players, adjudicate customer cohorts, run and present the game, sets a foundation that at the very least allows for the game to be responsive to its complex needs.

Have a great weekend everyone.