Symposium: Online education wave of future

The next generation of handicappers is not likely to hone its skills the old-fashioned way - at the racetrack - but will instead learn the intricacies of the game from a crop of new interactive and educational websites and Internet programs, officials of the sites said on Tuesday during a panel on the opening day of the University of Arizona Symposium on Racing and Gaming.

The websites, which include Horseplayernow.com and Horseracingnation.com, have been launched in the last several years to mimic fan sites for other sports and hobbies, and they offer wide arrays of interactive options for Internet users. In large part, the sites intend to re-create the racetrack experience, in which fans share opinions about betting and horses freely, but with two critical distinctions -- they don't typically offer live betting, and the interaction is faceless, well away from a live track.

The Tuesday afternoon panel, called "Reaching and Teaching the Horseplayers of Tomorrow," was the most popular session on the Tuesday schedule of the symposium, largely because it addressed a critical issue facing racing. Over the past several years, handle on U.S. horse races has contracted 25 percent, with wagering this year on track to register the lowest total since 1995, and the industry is struggling to develop fans who are willing to risk their cash on a sport that is hovering on the precipice of irrelevance in a highly competitive market.