New on track technology.

[Mall]

On Fri at Kee, United Tote introduced a new betting terminal which, according to the exec who showed me how to use it, is designed to even the score a little for those who attend the races in person. It was very crowded & hectic, & I'm sure I'm forgetting half or more of what he showed me, but the things that caught my attention included: (1) Instead of a voucher, you use a credit type card which has a scratch off pin on the back, which you can change, which means that it is highly unlikely anyone could use the card if you misplaced or lost it. The many vouchers I've accidently left behind over the yrs is why this aspect was of interest.
(2) You could display exotic odds continuously in a matrix of your chosing. Thus, exacta payoffs could be shown from lowest to highest & you would no longer have to wait until they came up on televison or the tote board.
(3) The screen can be used as what looked like a better than what's available video monitor for whatever race you were interested in.
(4) It allows for a type of mini-batch wagering, the details of which I need to try & confirm this week. I know that you can enter a number(not sure how many) of bets which you can either manually send at a later time or automatically have sent(not sure how much time before post) at a later time.
The advantages are based on the assumption that the devices will be readily available, which is not the case now, although I seemed to be the only one using them this weekend, so I suppose one could stand by one & learn/use all of the features which they provide. At present there are four located in the Bluegrass Room.

Speaking of new developments, using a voucher & the regular machines my friend & I couldn't figure out what the new "Mutual Fun" bet was, although I noticed today that there is a rundown on the Kee site, which I didn't check in advance. If there is a particular handicapping logic other than using hot & well know jocks that the "expert" is using to come up with his plays/betting strategies, it was certainly lost on me.

[MikeDee]

I have longed believed that if they lowered the min bet amount on tri's, supers, pick 3,4,5 and and 6's, etc. that they could generate a lot more excitement, handle and new interest in the sport. If the tri combination was only say a $0.25 rather then a $1. I think many more people would play them and have a chance to win a nice payoff. With machines like the ones you described you could set your min wager amount, make your multiple plays and put your winnings on your card. It would be alot more fun to box 5 horses in a tri for $20 rather then $60 as is the case with $1 mins.

[ggpagels]

Melvin- Very interesting. Update us when you try the machines again. :)

[Donnie]

At PRM you can make a deposit at the beginning of the meet and this allows you to use a table top SAMS machine. You don't even have to get up from your table. It's wireless and there are no lines. They deduct the wagers from your initial deposit and you can always fund it if you need to. I don't think they have half the functionality of the units you describe, Melvin, but they definitely let you get your last minute bets in!

[OPM]

Mike:
I don't think making existing bets in $0.25 denomination makes much sense, all this does is depress the payout. As super that pays $10,000 might only pay $2000. However, I do believe that bets such as win pick all with 50% carryover would be the perfect spots for the $0.25 wager. You could have a guaranteed pool of $25,000 if there is one winner. You could also have bets where you could pick the complete order of finish and make these bets $0.25 and again have the $25,000 guarantee. This would get more people involved in my opinion.

Of course the best thing you can do for the game is to lower the takeout to 10% on all bets!!!!

[Huguenot]

Mike:
I don't think making existing bets in $0.25 denomination makes much sense, all this does is depress the payout. As super that pays $10,000 might only pay $2000. However, I do believe that bets such as win pick all with 50% carryover would be the perfect spots for the $0.25 wager. You could have a guaranteed pool of $25,000 if there is one winner. You could also have bets where you could pick the complete order of finish and make these bets $0.25 and again have the $25,000 guarantee. This would get more people involved in my opinion.

Of course the best thing you can do for the game is to lower the takeout to 10% on all bets!!!!

Why would it depress the payouts? Is your logic that people could cover more combos? But what if they covered losing combos? Then the odds would be much higher.
I suspect favorites would pay less since the crowd tends to overbet them in exotics and longshots would pay more.
I think it would add more ill-informed money and help the payouts...

[tomcat]

Melvin, where is this terminal?

I have been a critic of United Tote in past after seeing the new terminals in Florida put out by Scientific games.

I'm also curious about the Mutual Wager...how is it going?

[MikeDee]

I don't think the payouts would be surpressed either. I think they could be enhanced by more money on picks with longhsots that don't hve a chance.

[Mall]

If memory serves, there are two terminals immediately to the left when one enters the main entrance two the Bluegrass Room, & two more to the right of the two mutuel clerks in the very back of the Room. I think the best the Mutuel Fun wager has done is plus $6 for a $20 bet.