Flatter: Kentucky sports betting magnifies what ails racing

Legal sports gambling got started in Kentucky this week. How many times did I see an image of the governor or lieutenant governor or a mayor or some other chancellor of politic making what was called “the state’s first sports bet” Thursday?

First of all, there has been plenty of sports betting Kentucky long before it had the imprimatur of legislative approval. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

Second, we have endured endless yarns about governors making tired bets against their rivals. To hell with job creation and crime prevention. When Kentucky plays LSU, voters will be better served by the wager of a case of bourbon against a bag of beignets.

Third, isn’t horse racing a sport?

Dispatched by TV stations keen to cover this week’s spoon-fed dose of the illusion of news, freshly scrubbed reporters showed up at hastily cobbled sportsbooks across Kentucky. They went live from Churchill Downs and live from Ellis Park and live from Turfway Park. They dutifully began all their sentences with “now,” and eventually, it was “back to you.”

The scenes have been similar in 31 other states plus the District of Columbia as they will be, too, when Oklahoma and Wisconsin get in on the action. Nevada would have been included if not for the fact it was betting legally on sports so long ago, there were no TV journalists. They were courtroom sketch artists who were reassigned from covering the Bruno Hauptmann trial.

While I wait for Kentucky’s betting apps to be activated in 20 days, I will wait for the new-bookmaker smell to wear off enough so I can figure out who will be charging the most juice to make a football bet, both pre-flop and in-game.

Funny how we in racing have our own terms for such things. Pre-flop is like a futures bet. In-game is like a play after the last click. That, by the way, has been tried in racing, but good luck finding a decent price on that hot closer when the frontrunners go out in 22 and change.

Like racing, the juice is important to follow. You know. The vig. The rake. Oh, sorry. The takeout.

Serious players in Las Vegas know good and well that the 10 cents of juice to bet a side before kickoff jumps to 15 cents once a football game is under way. Players who are not so serious simply do not care. They are the ones who are happy to make their bets in the hotel where they are staying rather than look across the street to see if the house is not skimming so much off the top of each bet.

In racing, we were reminded this week how we may or may not truly pay attention to takeout. Kentucky Downs, which deigned to raise its rake by 1 percent across the board, inspired the gnashing of teeth, the wringing of hands and the sounding of a boycott call from renowned horseplayer Chris Larmey.

I get the point. When I lived in New York, if a midtown street vendor charging me $1.50 for a bagel and cream cheese tried to ding me another quarter, I walked to the other end of the block and found someone else charging the old price.

Then again, the cinnamon-raisin bagel at the first place might have been undeniably better. Was it then worth the extra 25 cents? To draw the analogy to racing, Kentucky Downs has big, quality fields and more value in its pools. In short, even though it cost more than it did last year, it has better schmear, especially since the house still takes less than 1/ST, the New York Racing Association and Churchill Downs.

Larmey contends Kentucky Downs should not raise its takeout because it gets so much money from historical horse-racing machines and has low overhead compared with tracks who operate permanent grandstands and stables. The problem is the HHR money has to go to purses and breeding, not clerk salaries and tent rentals. As for the expense comparison, that is like saying street vendors should not raise their bagel prices if they don’t have to pay rent and electric bills the way a bricks-and-mortar place like Zabar’s does.

The better point that Larmey makes is the long game. Racing’s death will be by the thousand cuts that come from the bleeding of betting pools with ever-higher takeout. A little bit here and a little bit there. To me his argument is more effective when he points out Kentucky Downs or any place that raises takeout is joining the line of tracks that have piled straws on the backs of horseplayers who one day will collapse from all the accumulated weight.

That brings this whole discussion back to sports betting. Wanting to protect a horse industry that it commemorates on license plates, Kentucky leaders decreed that racetrack owners be the interlocutors for all the new wagers. That applies whether the action is taken in person or eventually online, where 94 percent of these bets are made across the country, according to Legal Sports Report.

In addition to the $500,000 it got from each track for licenses that have $50,000 annual renewal fees, the state will get 9.75 percent of the in-person bets and 14.25 percent of online wagers. After that, the split between tracks and the likes of Caesars, DraftKings and FanDuel was subject to individual negotiation.

Once all the introductory boost promotions run their course, let’s say the vig were to land on 15 cents for simple point-spread bets, or sides as they are known. That is still better than the 17.5 percent Churchill Downs gets for win-place-show wagers and much more attractive than the 22 percent for most others. Run those numbers by bettors who are choosing between CD and the SEC, and it becomes a no-brainer.

Tracks in Delaware and New Jersey were the first to get into bed with sports betting in 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court rubbished the old law that prevented it. The jury is still out on how much horse money has been cannibalized in these partnerships.

If nothing else, Kentucky’s alliance of horse betting and sports wagering, make that other-sports wagering, is another clarion call for our game to figure out how to make itself more attractive to new players. It is not helped by complicated past performances and the pari-mutuel reality that what you see when you place your bet is not always what you get.

Contrast all that with a sports bet. You and I both know it is far more likely we will cash a 5-1 or 10-1 ticket on a horse race than we will on a football game. But tell that to the Cardinals or Wildcats fan who does not want to spend the time to learn the nuances of pedigrees and speed ratings and track biases and closing speed. It is far easier for bettors to figure out how they can bet $115 to make $100 if the Wildcats beat EKU by more than 31 1/2. Tell them it is cheaper than making a bet on horses, and they do not stick around for the “yeah but.”

Rookie bettors and even us grizzled degenerates may not have high and higher takeout in our faces. But just like blackjack chips do not feel like real money, we ultimately figure out the subliminal effects of all this when our pockets and betting accounts are not flush with money.

Eventually, the future of racing will be determined by the boots of gamblers. If they literally or figuratively walk away from the product that is live at the track in order to wager on what is on the big screens in the sportsbook, on those games on Saturdays and Sundays with which they are more familiar, then the fate of racing will be sealed.

Now, back to you.