PUNTERS – THE NEXT GENERATION – RACINGS DILEMMA. – Ken Blake

As a secondary school student in the mid 60’s my father took me to a race meeting in our home town of Geelong. It was the first time I had ever set foot on a race course. I was hooked. There was something totally engaging about the whole thing, and as many readers will attest to, once racing gets its claws into you at a young age it is usually for life. That race track initiation was the geneses of a lifetime passion. Predominately the majority of my time allocation in racing has been in the examination of strategies and theories that would hopefully navigate a passage to puntings largely untapped riches.  

Although that aspect has been ticking over with reasonable satisfaction in recent years, it is also in this timeframe that I have become increasingly interested in the politics and future direction of the industry. At the moment facts and figures reflect an overall healthy portrayal of a somewhat burgeoning enterprise. My enquiries however, into certain industry aspects has revealed some facts which surely must be causing racing’s controlling bodies quite a bit of consternation, yet ostensibly nothing at the moment seems to be in place to address these situations.  If there was one particular aspect that has spawned this article then I would have to say it would be my observations over many years, of the demographic of patrons in the member’s enclosure of nation’s respective race clubs. People under the age of 30 are almost non existent in this arena. Statistically the 18 -29 yo represents the demographic that spends the most gambling, this is also the demographic that spends the least on racing. Now if I were a current incumbent of Australian racing, this fact would be the source of some considerable apprehension, primarily, as this group embodies the nations next punting generation. Which raises the question what is racing Australia doing at the moment to win over this age group? Over the last decade or so the household disposable income that is spent on gambling has risen from 1% to 3% but it is also in this timeframe that horse racing has lost and continues to lose ground to other forms of gambling.

Research by the Economics and Finance branch of the Queensland University shows that the 18 -24 yo male has a strong bias toward casino gambling in preference to horse racing. Australians are among the developed world’s most committed gamblers with per capita expenditure exceeding the U.S., Hong Kong and New Zealand. However as the gambling pie enlarges, racings slice continues to diminish. I find these alarming statistics and I must say a damning indictment on racing’s current incumbents. Why? Because racing has been way too tardy to react to change, and has   planned poorly for the future.  

No matter how we dissect or analyze the industry, the inescapable conclusion is that it is driven by the gambling dollar. So who at the moment is mainstay group that underpins the lion’s share of the wagering dollar? Statistically it is not the 18-30 group nor is it 60 plus demographic whose wagering preference has found to be outlets such as bingo and lotto. In essence it is the age group that has become known in society as the ‘Baby Boomers’. What happens when this faction dies out? At the moment, racing’s dilemma lies in the fact that the ageing effect of the mainstay group heavily outweighs the ingress of new players to the game. This will have a profound effect in years to come unless countermeasures are implemented to attract new players to the industry.

Race clubs may boast huge crowds on cup days and carnival times, but how many of this patronage are genuinely interested in the racing product itself. It would appear that social implications has clearly surpassed genuine interest in racing as the enticement as to why young people attend race meetings. If racing is to win over young players from alternate forms of gambling then it needs to stimulate interest and most importantly EDUCATE potential new participants to the game. Why is the wagering preference of this demographic casino biased? - in a word UNDERSTANDING. The simplicity of games like Roulette and Blackjack make them readily accessible to most young people. Any person of modest intelligence can pick up these games after only a brief observational period. However place a form guide in front of a racing newbie and form terms such as tcdw, checked at 600m, time splits etc are meaningless without the intervention of another helpful party.

It seems incredulous that a wagering industry that turns over in excess of 1.2 billion per annum, and spends vast sums of money on form production, does not have one solitary person employed to explain the most basic of all punting requirements – how to read a form guide. How can racing expect any long term commitment from these people, when it offers no educational process of basic understanding of their product? People will always gravitate to what they know, if they are not educated in the ways racing it is only natural their interest will shift elsewhere.

Racing also needs to examine its current marketing strategies which are far too one dimensional. The focus is heavily biased on the sports glamour aspect. Glamour is fine and a strong marketing point, but surely racing has plenty of selling points apart from this. At the time of writing fellow PPM contributor Roman Kozlovski has an excellent trilogy in print on high profile American punter Andy Beyer, a quote from Beyer that would encapsulate racing’s most salient appeal to myself is “ I was seduced by horse race betting because it offers more mental challenge and stimulation than any subject in the formal academic world-few people master it”  Let’s get a campaign in place that challenges people to solve racing’s daily conundrums of form analysis and selecting winners. The majority of the gambling masses love the challenge of trying to outwit the establishment and make money from wagering. Astute marketing can surely draw on the mentally challenging aspects of the sport.

Racing urgently needs to captivate the nations youngest gambling demographic and indoctrinate them with industry knowledge. It really is just a case of providing shepherds to lead the flock away from the futility of trying to win money in the heavily adverse environment of casino gambling and mindless poker machines. Somebody from racing just needs to say “Hey this is our product, this is how it works. Come on board and we’ll show you that you’re much more likely to be winners in our arena than where you’ve been” Racing needs some sort of educational program and needs to execute it as soon as practical. This could be activated by enforcing race clubs to hold monthly ‘workshops’ where potential race enthusiasts are nurtured in the basics of the game. The workshop scenario could be held prior to the running of the first event. The race club should provide free entry, the option of a member’s day pass and meal and drink vouchers for those who register for such courses. Get people to the track, educate them and show them what a great day out racing is. People will surely appreciate events more when they are fully acquainted with the dynamics of any such offering.   Any associated costing with such a venture would be repaid a thousand fold if young people are induced to a lifetime of participation in the sport.

Obviously the younger brigade should be racing’s critical target group, these are the future life blood of the industry, but the industry also needs to apply itself diligently to the task of regaining the gambling dollar lost to other forms. If the older generation (retiree’s) are spending on outlets that offer large payouts against a small outlay such as lotteries, bingo etc, then let racing generate some sort of national jackpot scenario and work to regaining some of the revenue by offering similar type games run through the racing industry. It is high time racing’s officialdom started taking its product to the people, the industries future well being may very well hinge solely on the strategies and management for the ingress of new players to the game. A continuance of the current attitude of indifference and passive involvement to this predicament by the games administers could see racing immersed in very somber circumstances in decades to come.