Advance deposit wagering on the Internet is a sterile experience. A bettor digitally interacts with a screen depicting tedious wagering information. Being at an actual racetrack is usually a much richer involvement because of the surroundings. However, this advantage will narrow owing to rapid advancements in virtual reality.

Grounded reality refers to the natural and physical world, whereas technology-based virtual reality denotes immersive experiences such as video games, flight simulators, and social networking sites. Likewise, advance deposit wagering is a virtual reality and so is the Jockey Club’s proposed free-to-play betting game for educating bettors.

Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson are the founders of virtual reality research centers at the University of California and Stanford University, respectively. Their 2011 book Infinite Reality demonstrates the phenomenon that “The brain often fails to differentiate between virtual experiences and real ones.” People who have watched 3-D action movies know the feeling.

Blascovich and Bailensen project that revenues from online gambling sites are likely to surpass revenues from physical casinos, partly because of progress in creating realistic virtual casinos. They explain: “While Vegas casino environments have physical limits, virtual ones can present any scene imaginable. One can gamble in the Louvre, underwater in the Great Barrier Reef, even on the moon. One can sit down to play blackjack with their favorite movie star as the dealer. Casinos will be stacked with audiences who cheer at players’ victories and gorgeous men and women who cling to their sides… Given an arsenal of virtual tools, casino owners might be able to build virtual havens gamblers will never want to leave.”

An important finding of the 2011 Jockey Club-sponsored McKinsey & Company study is that neophytes are apt to be intimidated and confused by online pari-mutuel wagering. In response, one can imagine a virtual reality racetrack–combining the best elements of racing’s most fan-friendly venues–in which a bettor’s avatar (a virtual character controlled by a person) is assisted by an expert agent (a virtual character controlled by a computer program) in handicapping and wagering.

Thus Amy in Alaska can escape a frigid January afternoon by logging on to a virtual racetrack modeled after Keeneland in the Springtime, where her avatar can mingle with the crowd and wager on a potpourri of real-time races from around the globe. This virtual racetrack won’t be plagued by complaints about customer service and food. Amy will be guided through the intricacies of handicapping and betting by an expert agent applying the precepts of Beyer or Crist and, if she chooses, looking like one of them.

Forbes magazine reports that “virtual characters are playing a growing role in online sales and marketing.” Advance deposit wagering websites could use them right now. Moreover, offering lifelike virtual racetracks may not be too far in the future, as demonstrated by the immersive video games already available and the authentic-feeling experiences being crafted by virtual reality doyens.

Copyright © 2012 Horse Racing Business

Originally published in the Blood-Horse. Used with permission.

American horse racing in 2011 had its share of ups and downs. Two developments on the positive side of the ledger are promising for 2012 and beyond.

Racing at the highest level was traditionally the bailiwick of extremely wealthy individuals because of the immense outlays involved. The increasingly popular limited partnership concept has changed this requirement, and syndicates consisting of small-percentage partners have brought in new owners at a time when racing badly needs them.

In 2011, the actively marketed partnership genre reached another milestone when Animal Kingdom won the most coveted race in the United States, the Kentucky Derby. This occurred only nine years after the bargain-basement auction purchase Funny Cide became the first entry owned by a commercial partnership to accomplish the feat.

The victory by Team Valor International’s $100,000 acquisition Animal Kingdom showed that the ownership modus operandi behind Funny Cide was no fluke; a diverse group of owners can pool relatively meager resources and have a chance to compete with the best of them. Similarly, in 2011, a Pinnacle Racing Stable partnership won the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint with the $22,000 auction purchase Musical Romance.

As a result of the partnership structure of ownership, a collection of everyday people–whose names will never register with racing historians–possess what eluded some of the most esteemed names and biggest spenders in racing—a win in the Kentucky Derby or Breeders’ Cup.

The other trend that bodes well is the sport is able to attract as owners some of the most accomplished American entrepreneurs, and do so while they are still in their 30s and 40s. Mike Repole of Vitaminwater fame has a deep bench of racehorses and his Stay Thirsty won the 2011 Travers Stakes. Kevin Plank, another young magnate and racehorse owner, founded the fashionable Under Armour line of clothing and deployed some of his rewards to buy and restore the late Alfred G. Vanderbilt’s Sagamore Farm in Maryland, where the “Grey Ghost” Native Dancer is buried. Bobby Flay, the celebrity chef, restaurateur, and television personality, has become very active as an owner and involved with promoting racing.

Racing has shown it has appeal for eminently successful younger entrepreneurs who know how to create a brand.

Copyright © 2011 Horse Racing Business

Originally published in the Blood-Horse. Used with permission.

Steve Byk, the informative host of At the Races on SiriusXM, recently had an on-air discussion with the knowledgeable Andy Serling of NYRA about the long-term process required to get new bettors up to speed on handicapping. They were of the opinion that racetracks should not “dumb down” their offerings to attract beginners, though they did agree that a few simple bets would be acceptable for this purpose.

My view is that it is not an either/or proposition. There is no reason that bets requiring little or no handicapping skill would interfere with the more complicated fare for experienced players.

The 2011 McKinsey & Company study sponsored by the Jockey Club clearly emphasized the fact that handicapping of horse races can be intimidating for neophytes and cited it as a barrier to recruiting and keeping new players. McKinsey’s presentation at the Jockey Club Roundtable in August demonstrated this with a video clip of a flummoxed young man struggling to make a bet with an ADW company.

Learning of complex subject matter requires one to start out with a thorough grounding in the basics. Students quickly get discouraged when they can’t cope with material that is beyond their skill level and are then apt to change their major so to speak.

Horse-racing handicapping is so esoteric to beginners that many people who try it get frustrated and quit. For this reason, racetracks and ADWs need readily understandable luck-laden bets that people can begin with and get the reinforcement of winning occasionally. This is how one lays the groundwork for graduation to higher level handicapping.

I once talked with an attorney who was a devoted player of card games at casinos, and pretty good at it.  He said he tried betting on horse racing on a couple of occasions and gave up because he never cashed a ticket. For learning to take hold, there has to be some positive reinforcement, which was lacking in this case and many others like it.

“Dumbing down” is a relative term. What seems overly simple for a seasoned handicapper may be intriguing to a novice. Racing needs all the new players it can get and the way to encourage this is to formulate bets that allow rank amateurs to crawl before they walk.

Copyright © 2011 Horse Racing Business