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Horse Racing Gallops Into the Video-Wagering Age
Fans are spending more money betting from off-track locations
Larry Stumes, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, June 27, 2000
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More money is being wagered on horse racing than ever before -- locally, statewide and nationally -- yet attendance keeps dropping.
How can that be? Television monitors, that's how.
The Sport of Kings has become the Sport of Video.
``We have 1,000 TV screens at Golden Gate Fields,'' said Sam Spear, the track's director of media relations. ``We don't rent binoculars.''
Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows have partitioned their massive grandstands into sections dominated by television screens and video-betting machines.
The TV screens show up to 27 races a day: the live events going on at the track just footsteps away, plus the entire card from the Southern California track, plus a number of races from New York, Kentucky, Florida, Illinois and other states. Bettors in those other states -- and in Nevada casinos -- also can play the races at GGF.
With so many betting opportunities, plus such a varied menu of wagers, it's no wonder daily average mutuel handle has increased dramatically in the past seven years. The average daily handle at GGF in 1999 was $4.2 million compared to $2.7 million in 1993.
In the just-concluded season at GGF, only 19 percent of the betting came from people actually at the track. The rest came from the 19 off-track simulcast sites in Northern California (36 percent) and from 560 out-of-state sites (45 percent).
Attendance, meanwhile, has plummeted. In 1999, the average on-track attendance at GGF was 3,111 per day -- less than a third of the 10,075 average in 1985. Even adding the off-track sites, attendance averaged just 8,438 per day in 1999 -- well below the high-water mark of 14,538 in 1992.
``People bet a lot when they're here, they just don't come as often as they used to,'' said GGF's pari-mutuel manager, Bernice Thurman.
``There is more competition for the gambling dollar,'' Spear said. ``There are card rooms, Indian reservations, the Internet, Nevada.
The access to all of that is a lot easier.''
Betting habits have changed, too. In 1984, when GGF offered only win-place-show (straight) betting plus exactas, one daily double and one pick-6, straight wagers accounted for 56 percent of the total. Today, with quinellas, trifectas, superfectas, rolling pick-3s, rolling daily doubles and a place-pick-all added to the mix, straight wagers account for only 35 percent of the total.
The current trend -- fewer people, more betting -- can be traced to 1986, when simulcast wagering was introduced to California. Limited to county fair sites and the major tracks, simulcasting was to be the sport's savior, and maybe it has been. But at what cost?
Racetrack operators hoped simulcasting would add new fans while not cutting into the live product. People could bet on the races from, say, Bay Meadows, at Golden Gate Fields, Santa Rosa (the Sonoma County Fair), Pleasanton (Alameda County), Vallejo (Solano County), San Jose (Santa Clara County) and Monterey (Monterey County).
Things haven't worked out that way, but with the bets pouring in from so many places, racetrack operators are resigned to the current situation.
``Bay Meadows had 4,510 people on Kentucky Derby day (May 6), and they bet almost $1.4 million, and there wasn't a single live horse at the track,'' Spear said.
Figures from Southern California and nationally mirror what's gone on in Northern California.
At the recently-concluded Santa Anita season, attendance averaged 10,880 per day on-track and 23,396 overall. In the first season of simulcast racing in Southern California (1987-88), the averages were 27,322 and 33,533, respectively. Despite its reduced attendance, Santa Anita set a betting record in 1999-2000, with $11,949,588 wagered per day.
A total of $13.7 billion was wagered on horse racing in the United States in 1999, and it wasn't until 1995 that the $10 billion mark was passed. Betting handle generates purse money, and U.S. purses passed $1 billion for the first time in 1999.
In Northern California, one additional factor may be affecting attendance: split meetings at Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows.
Before 1995, GGF and Bay Meadows each had one long season of 100-plus days. GGF typically ran from early February to late June, and Bay Meadows from late August until late January.
In the 1960s and '70s, Bay Meadows had slightly higher attendance and handle, but that changed in the '80s. The 49ers won the Super Bowl after the 1981 season, and interest in football grew dramatically -- along with betting on it, legally in Nevada and illegally with bookmakers.
Suddenly, Golden Gate had higher numbers than Bay Meadows, helped along by questionable management of the latter under Bob Gunderson and James Conn.
Wanting to reduce the competition from football, current Bay Meadows president Jack Liebau persuaded the California Horse Racing Board to fashion Northern California's racing calendar similar to that in Southern California, where the two major tracks, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, each have one major and one minor meeting per year.
In 2000, for example, Bay Meadows raced January 20-March 26 and has its major meeting September 1- November 12. Golden Gate Fields currently is conducting its major meeting, which began on March 30 and finishes on June 18, and also runs November 15-January 19.
``I don't know of anyone who is in favor of split meetings, except Jack Liebau,'' said trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.
They may not last much longer, because Frank Stronach's Magna Entertainment has purchased Golden Gate Fields and is in the process of purchasing the racing operation at Bay Meadows.
So Northern California's racing dates soon will belong to a single entity. Along with all of the television monitors.
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CHART:
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DWINDLING CROWDS
Average per-day attendance at Golden Gate Fields:
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YEAR ON TRACK TOTAL
1992 5,748 14,538
1993 5,232 13,551
1994 4,799 12,618
1995 3,786 10,171
1996 3,494 9,302
1997 3,303 8,973
1998 3,280 8,786
1999 3,112 8,438