Free entry - a monster success at Ascot

Barry, pull your tongue out!!!

From the sporting life

Well-known racing face and bookmaker Barry Dennis was not using the decimals but said: "Charles Barnett (Ascot's chief executive) is a genius and a lot of the credit for today should go to him.

"There has been a great crowd and we have had a fantastic day, the amount of bets we have taken is comparable to Royal Ascot. I'm a traditionalist, the decimals are optional and I don't want them."

A genius?
 
I'm not too sure how Towcester gets its business model to work, but I'm probably overlooking something.

In 2008 Towcester had a total of almost 70,000 spectators. At an average of over 4,000 per meeting, this was about double what other tracks in its league (e.g. Worcester, Hereford, Ludlow) were able to attract.

About 13,000 of those spectators were at the Easter and Christmas meeting at which £10 admission is charged. There was also a total bookie attendance of 380 during the year. If we assume £75 admission for bookies, then total gate revenue was about £160,000 (I suspect pitch revenue is much higher, however, because the track has done its own deal with the on course bookmakers and there is a relatively small number of pitches compared with the size of the attendance).

Similar tracks are getting about half the attendance, at about £15 per entry. If we assume pitch revenue is also reduced by half, this suggests that if Towcester adopted the same approach as other tracks it could achieve gate receipts of about £550,000, instead of the £160,000 or so that it is currently getting.

To make its policy work, Towcester therefore has to make an additional profit of about £390,000 from its 70,000 attendees compared with the profit it would make from the 35,000 attendees it could expect under a conventional business model.

Part of that additional profit presumably comes from a higher spend by the half of attendees who would have come anyway but don't have to budget for admission fees. If you assume that they spend an extra £5 per head due to this effect, you already have £175,000 extra revenue.

Presumably corporate boxes, advertising and sponsorship are easier to sell against a backdrop of higher attendances. Adding to that a spend on course by the additional attendees of the order of £15 to £20 per head would generate perhaps another £700,000 of revenue.

I can therefore see how Towcester can generate extra revenue of £875,000 or so each season from on course sales compared with similar tracks which follow a more conventional policy, but how much of that will be profit? Quite a lot of it, I imagine, because extra fixed costs must be minor, but is it enough to compensate for the almost £400,000 or so of admission money forgone?
 
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I was at Kempton last night. There were five of us - two experienced racegoers, two 18-year olds and one complete newcomer. We were quite disappointed when none of the promised market researchers showed up to ask our opinions.
 
Hah! No, I was required at Ascot thank God - after a bit of nifty rota changing, mind!!! :lol:

In response to Gareth's post :
Originally Posted by Gareth Flynn
Why is that? Something to do with how SPs are calculated?
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Walsworth is pretty much spot on. Software changes to allow for decimalisation of every price would have had to have been massive for what was just a trial, and something that no-one thought would catch on anyway. The books were inputting normal fractional odds into their computers which were being decimalised (and rounded up!) for display on the boards of those who were trialling it. Incidentally, Sam Harris' pitch was directly in front of me all afternoon and myself and my colleagues observed that it was devoid of punters virtually the whole afternoon despite having pitch 1 in Tatts.
 
the decimal affair is pathetic,

what a society in Europe when people has problems with decimals and fractions,

this is something we shouel learn in the schoold as childs of 8yo.
 
Shadow Leader said:
Too right!!!!! Pandering to the lowest common denominator is what it is!
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Not saying you're wrong, as I too would prefer odds to stay as fractions, but what is wrong exactly in pandering to the lowest common denominator? That way everyone can understand it and get involved, meaning a bigger customer base for racing in general.
 
Oh, come on Simon - the answer's all in your own post...

'Low' - 'Common' - 'Customer' - 'Pandering' ........ and Shadz ???

Purleeeze..... :cool:
 
Simon, at the rate at which this country is dumbing down and education on the simplest of matters seems to have all but vanished, large swathes of the population will wake up one day and find that they simply cannot move their limbs, since their brain has shut itself down due to inaction and turned to mush....
 
Thanks very much for the interesting input re Towcester, Aragorn and Grey. Will mull that over some more, because if it really was a perfect working model, all courses would be following suit!

Re bookies: I inquired from lovely Vicki Steadman, our NJPC manager this evening at Brighton, and no, their own software is only for fractions. However, she said about five got some special decimalised software installed for the Ascot experiment, which worked with 'mixed results'. Overall, she didn't think it seemed to have met any particular need, so one feels it's a question of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

Re Towcester: bookies pay five times the amount of a course's entrance fee, so I'm not sure how five times nothing works! Presumably, as you say, Grey, it's a deal they work out. At Lingfield, the price is £85 per pitch & fee for the AW, £95 for turf and NH meetings. I can hardly believe those bookie numbers, though - I've never had more than 13 (Tatts and Rails) at Lingfield to date for regular meets! Might have up to 24 for the Oaks Trials, but that'll be about it. 380 (granted a total attendance) for what, 22 meetings? That seems quite a lot, but of course if they get in good crowds, then they need to have them there to feed off them.

Okay, still not quite seeing the whole picture: most courses have around £20m in Third Party Insurance, they have to buy bedding (usually a choice of shavings or paper), they have to have a minimum amount of BHA officials onsite - stables security x 2 (the guy with the microchip wand), stewards, weighing-room security (not a hired hand, but a BHA-endorsed chap with an RCA badge), the judge, the Clerk of the Scales, the stewards, then the vet/s, and at least one doctor, hire in St John Ambulance and/or local paramedics, two ambulances, and then a number of people who have to provide safety and security presence to meet licensing laws. One security person per 1,000, I think (that's H&S legislation, the same for sports stadia, not the BHA's requirement), who has to be SIA badged. You must provide a dope box with a dope witness and a dope vet who isn't the vet who charges round the course following the horses. You have to have the dope catcher, the guy who walks the horse back for dope testing. You have to provide staff outside and inside the weighing room door, and outside any jockey door if it's separate. There are just a number of people who cannot just rock up on the day or not - they have to be in place under BHA requirements. Then a starter, starter's assistant, recall flagman, and attendants around the course with/without flags. The equine ambulance (hired), the knacker van (hired)... there's a very long list of requirements and they all cost money to provide. How the heck the course manages to do this and also maintain its buildings and grounds is amazing.
 
Yeah, um, that's what I'd already confirmed further up, about the bookmakers, their software and the conversion of fractions into decimals, Kri - and you got it from the horse's mouth, from someone there and working in the ring on the day! I'd say Vicki was glad that she was well out of it as well, not least since there was potential for carnage on the day for the betting ring manager (Andrew Boardley I believe it was on Weds) with the racecard full of woefully inaccurate 'facts' in their betting guide for the novice racegoer.

Have you revised your view that free racing doesn't attract racegoers yet, Kri?! :p It's generally a rip-roaring success where it happens (other than Lingfield we're told) since the good ol' British public love nothing better than a freebie.
 
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Krizon, the bookie attendance of 380 at Towcester is the total for the season; it averages out at about 26 per meeting.

Regarding your lengthy list of costs, presumably these are indeed no different at Towcester to anywhere else.
 
Just thought it would confirm what you said, Shadz, as some folks won't always believe things unless someone directly involved says 'em.

Grey, yes, got that - did say so, actually. That's what I find amazing, since Fontwell, Plumpton, Lingfield and Brighton (my limit of direct knowledge) certainly don't average that number per meeting! And as for the list of some of the costs, that's exactly what I'm driving at - how does Towcester manage to meet them without any entry fees? Okay, doubling up on many courses' bookies' pitches helps, but even so...

Shadz, back to free days out. Certainly I couldn't but agree that these have been a grand success. Maybe the fact the freebies at Lingers were bog-standard AW in winter, rather than sunny-day jollies with, certainly at Ascot, a rather good card on offer, had something to do with it. Although in semi-fairness to Lingfield, the bunch of idiots then in the marketing department couldn't have advertised the Barry Dennis days any worse than they did! Actually promoting their product was the least item of interest to them. Fortunately, we've had several changes of managers and staff and I think the course does actually announce the correct days and times of racing on local radio now, as against a constant conflict with its own website! But it's still an awfully lonnnng way behind Fontwell, for example, which is nonstop promotion.

Squeaking of Lingers - am just dashing off there now, but afore I go, meant to ask a really dumb Q I suppose I could find out from the bookies today, but - what exactly is 'betting the overround'? I hear Big Mac going on about this practice and haven't a clue what's involved. Cheers for anyone who can give me an idiot's guide!
 
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Overround is the profit on a certain race for the bookmakers, Krizon. So, for example, in this year's Grand National there was a 155% overround meaning the bookies were making a ridiculous 55% profit on the book for that race. An easier way of explaining this is if you were to bet on every horse in this year's Grand National to win a total amount of £100 you would have to bet £155 to do so, making a loss of £55.
 
Ouch, Simon, you've made the first - very common! - mistake in trying to understand over-rounds. Now, what the over-round actually means is that (in the case of the 155% book being quoted) if a bookmaker lays £1 on every horse in the race, at the prices that were offered at the time [of the 155% book - ie at the starting price in the Grand National example] then they will make 55% profit. However, that 55% profit will only happen if every horse in the race is laid to the same stake. Therefore the media frenzy that is often whipped up over these 'dreadful' over-rounds isn't quite accurate as such figures only apply if every horse is backed to the same stake in a race, which of course never happens. What really happens at these meetings where the over-rounds tend to be so high (low grade AW meetings being the classic example) is that most books have in reality only laid the top two or three in the market, which in effect means that they are betting under-round, since going by what they have actually laid, they can be betting to well under 100%.

I totally agree about the marketing of free days, Kri - mind you I haven't seen a lot of advertising for this free week (well, not until about Wednesday!!) and a journalist was giving out to me on Wednesday at Ascot about the lack of information available about it, he was trying to get hold of RFC for full details so he could publicise them! By all accounts, there could be carnage at Goodwood tomorrow as well seeing as they've already allocated their 11,000 free tickets and so anyone turning up on the day tomorrow expecting to get in for nowt will be sorely disappointed.
 
:blink::blink::blink: I know it'll all make sense eventually.... !

Cheers, Shadz. Will really need to concentrate on that. But thanks for taking the time to try the online tutorial!

I was going to go to Goody, using my ROA/OBS card, but think I'll swerve it to a less frantic weekend. Had forgotten it was a Bank Jollyday until just leaving Lingers, when was wished a happy long weekend. The southbound traffic was already double the usual, so, noooo... don't think I'll be going! You're right, Shadz, it'll be a humungous turnout and then a bitter and furious turnaway!
 
I hope I'm not going too mad, or too stupid, Aragorn! But yes, the over-round is calculated by laying every horse to a mythical £1 [1 unit] stake, is it not??
 
Free day for local residents at Lingfield on their first Saturday evening meeting apparently, be interesting to see if it makes any difference to their already big crowds on summer Saturdays.
 
Steve - it's been free for locals for years, provided they put their names on their (Tandridge) parish list for a voucher, which they redeem at the gate. The list is sent to the course the day before racing. They still have to provide proof of residence, i.e., utility bills, etc., to be added to the list, so it's not a case of turning up and saying they're residents. They can come to any race meeting free of charge provided they've been accepted as residents by the parish council.
 
Absolutley, 40 tickets per meeting from the PC used to be the deal, 1 per household etc etc. They changed it a little while ago so that you have to now go to the Racecourse prior to the meeting and collect a ticket from the office, showing proof of ID - 2 per household for midweek meetings and 1 for a Saturday. They have written to local residents though about the first Sat eve meeting and although I don't have it in front of me it is a specific offer to locals so presumably no limit of 40 and possibly more than 1 per household, will verify when i read it properly.... Lingfield Local Resident Ticket policy
 
You know what? None of us have been told about that at the briefings! What's the betting nobody will have a clue on the day, either, and nobody will be added to the staffing at the gate to deal with the madding crowd. Thanks, Steve, I'm going to e-mail the course to ensure we're all - well, most of us - singing off the same hymn sheet on the day, otherwise chaos and anarchy will reign!
 
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