Teletrack – Is this the potential savior of racing?

Teletrack – Is this the potential savior of racing?
No I’ve not lost my mind – Let’s think about this carefully. DSTV has a certain amount of subscribers – channel 232 is on the bouquet – now I channel hop as I’m sure many of you do – I’m desperately trying to find my Dish Mag for this last month (if you have one please check out the facts for me) – I’ll take a chance and say that you won’t find the Summer Cup or Jockey International highlighted in the sport section –
My idea would be for Phumelela/GC to buy a page in the mag – advertise forthcoming meetings – concentrate on the big three/four meetings July, Met, Queens Plate and Summer Cup(or meeting of the month). Link Sponsors to the page – organize sponsors (Sansui etc ) to give their product away via Mnet/Dstv (part of the prize would be a trip to that particular raceday) Give away a cash prize and betting voucher(please not only a betting voucher as the poor sod that wins might lose the lot at the races which is not on).
Do a human interest story – Jockeys, De Kock, etc. Make sure that on the page a bold Ch232 is shown – Highlight a few big winners – check your database “R6 nets punterR21 000 etc” – give the tel no for opening a telebet account(you don’t want them walking into a tote if you can help it or they’ll not return!!)
Ensure the person/s tasked with opening new accounts has a brain and knows more about racing than your average Phumelela employee. Now perhaps the Channel hopper stops at 232 and watches a few races – the birth of a new punter maybe?
Now Teletrack comes to the party – run a competition on Saturdays SMS entry only R10 a pop – Select a PA (not P6 – too difficult) for R500 (%, perm or straight line) – random draw gets you an entry. The TT presenter announces the winner and his selections are then posted on screen – if he loses he gets zip if he wins it’s all his. Do this in centers like Mauritius, and the UK(Even locally if you must). All entrants, winners and losers, then go into a draw for a trip to Mauritius/Dubai for a week at the end of the season (watch some racing, lie on the beach etc) The SMS revenue should be enough to pay for the trip and prize and at the same time you are getting punters to take bets in a centre that they would not normally bet on.
Create another competition in the Dish Mag - SMS the winner of let’s say the Summer Cup - don’t ask them to pick the winner beforehand BUT after the race to ensure they watch the event and know that they have a winning chance as they have the answer to the question – lines only open five minutes after the race and close say at the end of local racing(5pm). Make sure the prize is fairly big (not the R10 betting voucher nonsense!!) Now the nonracegoer has to either watch the race on CH 232 or look for results before the end of racing.
You could obviously run a similar compo in the Citizen – Small block add in the first three pages “SMS the winner of race seven at the Vaal to 32823 and win XYZ etc” Now the nonpunter has to look at the results page to find out who actually won race seven. Prize SHOULD not be only betting voucher as you’ll kill them stone dead – should be a tangible object coupled with voucher.
I've wasted enough time now - best to leave it here as i'm rambling a bit...

Not a bad post Mr H, food for thought

txs

Nope you have lost your mind. Suggest some blue juice therapy.

On the subject of big carry overs etc, I thought that my tote money should have a tote theme for the competition, can you imagine if I was to carryover for the correct dividend

lol

seriously, book yourself a shrink session.

Amazing. Someone at least tries to formulate an idea for the betterment of racing and he's told he needs a shrink. Never mind, Mr H. I bet a lot of people told the Wright Bros they were mad, too!

Never fear Magic - the thing is that too many people on the forum are judging Teletrack on their own perception of what it should be like - Novice Punters would think it's the best thing since sliced cheese(I have never been a poker fan but I have watched one or two of those big matches late at night when TT used to host the feed and I did start to understand the game so I'm speaking from personal exposure) - I have quite a few problems with TT myself but I really beleive it is an underutilesd tool that could be attracting new punters or educating those that may not have all the tools to study form that you and I have. At the very least it could be used to bring back some of the excitement back into the game

It is racing's outlet to racing and non racing people alike but focuses only on the former. As such it is under utilised. PS We were told at the outset that Sporting Post would never work. 15 years later and it's still here. There were always be detractors to any new idea. They are often, but certainly not always, right.

mr hawaii, i read your post and of course someone in marketing should come up with stuff like this as they would in every other business. When you say potential savior, I guess you mean against failure. Your solution leaves me guessing what you think the cause of the failure you wish to address in this way.

Do you think there is a difference between life long punters and someone who has R50 on the July? Do you think racing can pick up hard gamblers through mass advertising, or even 1000 R50 gamblers to pay for the add? I'm not ragging you, but the plain truth is that racing has applied these kind of 'what if' marketing without proper targeting, and the result had been a rock steady decline. 20 years ago we had crowds and million rand racing, factor in inflation and you will see before we can go up, we need to pull the plane up from the dead dive.

Yes JD I'm looking at racing/punting as having the potential to die - the totes are full of people older than 40 - there are no new faces regardless of what some survey might tell you - the reality is that there are far more interesting things to do for young people but I do believe that we can grow the industry by rationalization and selling the product to the masses - I'll use the old game of Fah-Fi as an example - I still see people sitting on the street waiting for the "Chinaman" to arrive. Racing has the advantage of having quick returns using your own skill but is this enough I wonder? Racing needs to realise why the Lotto has blown it away - the common man with very little money - Stop neglecting this person and taking him for a fool - He'll soon realise that rubbish is rubbish regardless of how it smells(Ngong P6 pool R5000!! - Phumelela could make more by selling the race space to an advertiser selling timeshare on the moon)

Mr H, I been thinking on your post.

I believe that from (racing) punters you will eventually arrive with 2 types.

One that plays the lotto as well, and one that almost never does.

The lotto requires no skill, no one has an advantage.

Skillful/informed punters have a HUGE advantage over mugg punters who play horses as if it were a lotto. Pretty soon they realise they don't get a return like some other players.

So while very few win constantly, the bulk just lose slowly and the muggs who's luck will run out quickly and so will their money. Playing favourites will allow you to feel like you are winning, while you lose.

So if you accept this, you will see it's ultimately not an environment like a casino. Racing is more like poker. And as a result, horse punters either love it and 'believe' they can beat the system and win and therefore will grow into the 'sport', or they will just not see the point of the investment of time, energy and life compared to an 'equal chance' type gambling elsewhere.

I think that is why I have 'horse' and 'gambling' friends, and we talk about nothing else. My non-H & G friends have no interest and we only talk about anything else. Like this forum

I have proved this point myself - I've not been studying at all lately and have found that I've been way off the mark - You do increase your chances if you do the work and apply youself so the skill level is lifted by a little bit of elbow grease and brow bending - the lotto requires PRECISE TIMING only - Make sure you buy a ticket before the outlet closes!!!