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So Meadowlands has discussions with their fans and players to help the Meadowlands handle. The outcome is that the post time is dragged on and they wait and wait AND people would bet more if they got rid of courtesy tucks. The new rules go in place and the handle drops 22% ( even though I believe their comps were not true for last year there was no Canadian racing during this test period). So they get rid of their post-time countdown clock and go back to what they did before BUT they keep the no courtesty tuck rules. A strategy that all top drivers use to let in a leading contender in the race so they can then get a cover trip later in the race. Most of the big players factor in that a betting favorite will get a seat. Why get rid of one and not the other??
Who did they discuss this with ? Which fans and players ? The 100 or 200 on track players that are there for the night out ? 95% of the players are betting from home. I don't know what % is from New York but it seems to me that the big hit in the handle coincides with New York getting legal sports betting. Gamblers don't like racing any more and would much rather bet on the sports.
Instead of this prolonged "drag" (lieing to customers) why not just establish later post times?
The horsemen, track employees and supposedly the bettors complain that they all want to get home earlier
Meadowlands handles $3.3 million on Saturday, 1st time over $3m this year."Adding the post time drag and cancelling Friday night were big factors," said Meadowlands President Jeff Gural. "Starting next Friday, March 4, we fully expect to see David Miller, Brian Sears and Tim Tetrick driving here which will only strengthen our driver colony.""The plain and simple fact is that long gaps between races helps our handle," said Gural. "The thoroughbred tracks routinely have 30 minutes plus between races and look at their handle. Tonight we didn't run the 1st race until 6:33 and we handled over $73,000 on the early pick 5, so it was definitely good for business. Going forward our fans can expect that there will be significant post time drag on races that begin our pick 4's and pick 5's."
"Going back to the post-time ‘drag’ combined with having all of our top drivers back in the fold has increased our handle dramatically,” said Big M Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Jason Settlemoir. “We are thrilled with the betting over the last few weeks as our last two Saturday cards have resulted in over $7 million being wagered on our races.”Settlemoir went on to say that "while first race post will continue to be listed as 6:20 pm, the first race will not go "off" earlier than 6:30 pm. The post-time drag will be adjusted on a race by race basis and while we would like to complete 13 race programs in under 5 hours, we will lengthen the "drag" if wagering continues to improve"
