I think something that definitely needs to be taken into consideration is the growth of other betting pools @ Ellis since the 4% take-out was implemented. I would expect pool growth in many or all bets in races involved in the pk 4. If someone gets knocked out of the pick 4 in the first or second leg chances are they will probably bet on races in the rest of the sequence because they must have had some bet-worthy opinion of those races and we all know how frustrating it can be when you cap for hours and drop a good amount of money into a serial bet and get knocked out early.
I also don't think that Ellis's seeming lack of success with the pk4 is indicative of how lower take-out would be welcomed industry wide. I am certain that if NYRA did the same thing the pools would grow exponentially. There could be 1% take-out and I probably wouldn't play the Ellis pick 4 because I just won't dump that kind of money into a pool at a track that I have no experience at. I admire what Dunbar and others are doing by playing the Ellis pk4 but I think that until the major tracks find some reason to lower take-out, experiments at lower level tracks won't provide any incentive to or evidence that lowering the vig is a good move from a business perspective.
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