Quote:
In fact, Gagliano said in his own Round Table presentation that the market share of the programs has a mathematical limit in that “they need recreational players in the pool to be profitable and to continue betting.” The programs most often target the pools at the highest-handling tracks because the programs need to have large pools in order to properly estimate the impact of their bets on payouts, which is also why they dump their bets at the last possible moment before a race goes off.
Gagliano said experts estimate that the programs would hit the mathematical limit at a market share of 20 percent. [Currently estimated at 16-19 percent]
“So, we may be nearing the limits of the growth in computer wagering that we’ve seen over the past seven years,” Gagliano said. “If so, overall handle will decline again in the future unless racing can grow handle from recreational bettors.”
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That's a very ominous prediction. If I'm reading that correctly, they're saying that most of the uptick we've seen year over year since 2011 can be attributed to CRW. But the whales will soon run out of room to grow, at which point the industry is going to be relying on all the little fish (which the whales are actively driving away) to come back,
and bring their friends. Otherwise we can expect handle to start dipping again like we saw from 2004-2011.
That seems like quite a longshot. Between this and the rise of sports betting, could be some very dark days ahead for racing.
