Pricing of TG and betting turnover

[DaveDuggan]

Question for all on the board, given the pricing of TG (which is rather expensive compared to the more standard drf form), how much, or maybe rather, how little can you justify to bet on each day for it to still be comfortable to be buying this more expensive though in some critical ways superior form product? Are you all highrollers?

And for Jerry, have you ever been thinking about reducing your prices in a try for a much bigger part of the marketshare (purchase of racing form)? What have been your rationale for or against cheaper/more expensive pricing (other than trying to keep an edge for your own betting)? Do you earn close to what DRF is making selling their form? Or the alternative, would there ever be a chance for the TG-figure to out-compete the Beyer as the standard in DRF, and would that even be remotely interesting for you?

Just asking because of my interest in these business strategical questions.

[miff]

\"Question for all on the board, given the pricing of TG (which is rather expensive compared to the more standard drf form), how much, or maybe rather, how little can you justify to bet on each day for it to still be comfortable to be buying this more expensive though in some critical ways superior form product? Are you all highrollers?\"

Dave,

Think you are asking for a comparison of an apple and an orange. DRF hard copy cost $9.00 per day and its value is the pp\'s, beyer speed figs for all the major venues, some stat data, good writers about the game.

TG is a performance figure based product hinting form cycles/patterns along with specifically targeted stats which many players find valuable.A rather substantial difference between the two products and quite a different player but most players I know use both.In NY, sheet readers,as they are often referred to,are by far the largest volume bettors as is the case nationally(bots not included).No, they are not all high rollers but their average play is  usually higher than most bettors.

As far as prices of the various products, its fair value is in the perception of the player.Two popular cheap products had Frosted and Materiality faster than AP going into the Belmont.The most expensive product had figures for some of the TC runners and whole days, off the wall....the moral of this story is that sometimes you get what you pay for, other times not.


Mike

[TGJB]

I\'ll try to get around to answering this, might not be today.

[DaveDuggan]

Yes, I was thinking of the PP\'s on the DRF (with formulator etc) and didn\'t really even consider the possibility of people buying the hard copies anymore ! But when you mention it, I\'m sure there are a lot that do. It might well be apples and oranges, I won\'t argue on that, however I think also apples and oranges would be a price issue for the average fruit consumer if they were to drift apart too much

Given that my interest in US Racing (I\'m not American) and really horse racing at all began by coincidence when Betfair for a short period of time started to give away the Thoro-Graph for free (though it has escalated a lot since then, mainly focusing on the racing over here), I could never imagine betting these American races using anything else. I\'ve tried DRF too though and while I do appreciate some of the additional information in there (like workouts, fractions, top 3 horses in the past races, career stats etc) the Beyer rating just doesn\'t cut it for me. So I find that for my purposes, that is recreational and sporadical win or bust-betting focusing on win bets on Betfair and some occasional exactas in the tote, Thoro-Graph is amazing and it really is incredible that one could do okay with just purchasing and downloading a PP and go by the sheets, missing all the stuff that goes on on a day-to-day basis that anyone that follows the tracks more closely would know more about. I think that is a big testament to the value of Thoro-Graph, which I, at least for my use, never would question and I\'ll be glad to pay for also in the future.

However, I do know that I would play a lot more US Racing if the form where cheaper and specially if I had purchased it in greatly rebated (compared to the prices today) packages of say 100 or maybe even 200 dollars for all the form you wanted for that month, or say 1000 dollars for all the form you wanted for a whole year. I guess the way you guys do this is to focus on a meeting or two at the time and reduce the cost that way, however what I do when I\'m playing is scim through a lot of races on different tracks all over America and just handicap them as I sit and wait for the next one that seems bettable (this is of course not my approach when I bet over here in my own country, where there is usually just 2-3 meetings per week).

Maybe my approach is a rare one and if so there should be no doub\'t that TG is doing this right the way it is done now, however if my approach to this indeed is one that many more would share, couldn\'t it be possible that both TG\'s handle and indeed the overall betting handle on US Racing increase a lot if one tried to get this form products out to the masses in an even bigger way? I\'ve read some discussions in the archives about the general need to attract more sports bettors, poker players etc (like myself), and I think the way to do that would be to make great form products like these more available to the masses (hell maybe even JB could get people sponsing this project, like I presume Betfair did in it\'s time). Because, given all the information available from services like these, there is not many sports out there that provides a bettor with better opportunities than Horse Racing, as a betting experience it is totally unique, specially for people that care about maintaining an edge (poker players, serious sports bettors etc). I wouldn\'t underestimate the effect on betting handling of having people buy into this \"download all that you want\"-mentality either, you don\'t need to be a genius to see that people in buffets are fatter than people in the average restaurant !

[Boscar Obarra]

I\'m sure Jerry doesn\'t need me to say it, but the price of TG has actually been steadily dropping, when adjusted for inflation.

 I don\'t recall exactly, but wasn\'t it at this price 20 years ago?

[kencbs]

When I first started with TG back in the late 1980\'s, I believe it was $27

[TGJB]

Yes. I\'ve kept it there with the thought that at a higher price we wouldn\'t be able to expand the market, and I think I was right.

We did look (at length) at various low end products, including something like what Ragozin/Timeform are doing, at about 1/3 that price they are charging. The problem, as I have said here before, is that it\'s tough to tell how much you would be able to expand the market, and you would have to start by offsetting cannibalizing your higher priced product.

When I look at those Rag/Timeform pp\'s, I think of Annie Hall, with Woody quoting Groucho-- \"The food here is so bad. And such small portions\".

[Bet Twice]

Any thought of bringing back the $8 pick 4 special?  As a small recreational better that was a great way to get some \"action\" when I wouldn\'t otherwise bet.

[TGJB]

That was being subsidized by various tracks, we might do it again some time.

[mjellish]

I could make the argument that if you lowered the price and more people bought the data and figured out how to use it, you would find that other people who have been regularly buying the product would no longer want it.  So if you are going to try to expand the market by lowering the price you may as well try to get it included in the form or something, take the sure money and more or less give it away to almost everyone who is playing that day, IMO.  

I haven\'t used Beyer figures for almost 20 years.  They do not factor into my handicapping one bit.  That\'s not to say that I don\'t think the figures are accurate or good.  I just don\'t use them because they don\'t offer any value to me.  

If you find a horse who\'s last 3 Beyers are higher than everyone else in the field, making him a stand out on their figures, he will almost always be a heavy favorite anyway.  So where\'s the edge in using that data?  Do you have to use it to avoid being left out?

[DaveDuggan]

To be fair, if Miff is right and sheet players is way overrepresented in the pools because they tend to bet more I don\'t see that argument hold up too good. You\'re observation might be right anyway, but that should maybe be more due to the fact that Beyer don\'t use ground so that the best figures are also those that finished first in the race, i.e no \"buried\" figures. But yeah, causation, correlation. One thing I\'m pretty sure of is that Jerry would take 10 casual bettors over 1 highroller any day! (Even if they pay a third of todays price).

[Tavasco]

TG is already the most economical product in the market.
Like cost of Rolls Royce vs Fiat.
What are you measuring entry cost?

Price has no meaning without a measure of value received!

[rhagood]

An age old condumdrum: How to expand market share without conceding margin erosion? Instead of watering down the existing offering, continue to expand the menu. Every mature consumer company from Starbucks to USPS broadens it\'s offerings.  Any thoughts on a broader subscription model, so many races per month at differing price points. Anyway for Jerry to do more analysis on bigger cards outside of the triple crown, Saratoga and Breeder\'s Cup? This Saturday night at Churchill for example. Entry level and many weekend players will always lean on the more experienced wisdom of the sage elders as they learn the game or due to time limitations want a quicker analysis than they can generate themselves.

[TGJB]

Correct on the overall view, it took me longer than most to figure things out because I was a horseplayer/stable manager with no previous business experience who ended up running a data business. We have done a lot with pricing over the last few years-- caps, discounts etc.-- and yes, we\'re looking at other product lines.

The issue with seminars is they are very labor and time intensive. We ended up doing about 380+ for the Belmont, so I may do one a month or so, see how they go.

[PapaChach]

How much labor do you save by doing a written-only version of the seminars?