that discusses why betting on horses is quickly becoming a dying art. Despite some in the industry
, the current format is very archaic and simply not worth the time and effort to anyone under the age of 30. It also doesn’t help that the risk/reward is so blatantly poor.
“Instead of $85 or $87 of every $100 bet going to pay all the winners, it’s more like $80 today,” Kornegay said. “The tracks are trying to figure out how to make money. But this ends up hurting the players.”
“You don’t get value for the money,” said Astarita, 62. Bettors are “churned” by fees tracks build into their payouts, while running small lineups of horses with meager chances to win big. “Rebate shops” that take horse bets online are “sucking the lifeblood out of the business” by making big bets that cut into what small gamblers win on long shots. And younger people, attracted to the fast pace of Internet poker, “don’t want to wait 30 minutes between races,” he said.
