by Bob Carson

Editor’s Note: The USTA website is pleased to present freelance writer Bob Carson and his popular “Outside the Box” features. This monthly series is a menu of outlandish proposals presented with a wink — but the purpose behind them is serious. The views contained in this column are that of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the United States Trotting Association.

Bob Carson

People placing bets are what separates horse racing from Bocce ball and dressage. Our future is always about the money, and the money comes from wagering. Unfortunately, harness racing is not the same bet we used to be. No — wait — we are basically the same bet we used to be. That is a problem.

My uncles used to spend hours with their noses burrowed in the race program. They would drive long distances in any weather to get to the racetrack. They arrived early to watch warm up miles. They would stand in queues to place their wagers and clomp to the fence to watch the trotters and pacers. At the end of race eight (they always left immediately after race eight so that they would get home to watch the news on channel 5) they would head for the parking lot totaling their wins or losses. Grinding out a $6 profit was a big deal and made the ride home a magic carpet.

It’s all changed. My beloved uncles are all at the great teller window in the sky; gosh, I miss them. Very few horse fans drive to the racetrack these days, almost-news is on non-stop on whatever channel shares your point of view. A $6 profit will hardly cover a burger and fries at a drive-thru.

The wheels turn.

To avoid getting crushed under those wheels, let’s look hard at the money, the engine that drives our rickety bus. The thrill of small wins that used to send my uncles into moments of rapture no longer appeal to most gamblers, especially not to younger, faster paced, unsophisticated players who may at some point give our sport a look-see. We must appeal to new money.

Step back and put yourself into the shoes of a millennial and look objectively at a person placing a traditional wager; let’s say $2 to win. After placing the wager, they wait several minutes, watch a moderately entertaining two minutes of action, they win or lose a race. Even if they win, a profit of $7.20 will not send them into ecstasy. To those not infatuated with our sport, the entire exercise, which once upon a time was cutting edge, is now sort of ridiculous.

To lure new players, younger players, perhaps even women players, we need to change both the experience and the money. We need to move from a cheap slog to a rewarding sprint. Here is an item on the table for the money part of our uncomfortable equation.

Let us try some programs of harness races without the traditional tote board and pari-mutuel structure. For this prototype program, a race will go off every 10 minutes. The cost of each wager is $5. And to be a winner you must have the complete order of finish absolutely perfect.

If you win, you win big, very big, big enough so word can spread virally. There is only one type of wager on this program and all the money goes into one pool. If there are no winners, the money rolls over to the next perfect program. Several rollovers would create a breathtaking total that would draw attention and cash.

This type of wager has something for each end of the wagering spectrum. True handicappers will always have an edge, but total amateurs, who make their sequence selection randomly or by allowing a machine to randomly generate their ticket, will not feel intimidated. New players will also be less likely to believe the fix is in.

Once again, close your eyes and imagine you are a millennial who knows nothing about harness racing. You are patiently sitting in the chair of Ink Again Tattoo Parlor and Massage Emporium waiting for Igor the ink master to put the final touches on a seven-headed snake that will grace the shoulder of the client ahead of you.

As you wait, you do what millenniums do — you fall face first into your phone to make sure nobody tweeted something important in the past 31 seconds — like the ficus plant on their desk has a new sprout. While it is highly unlikely you will break away from this breaking agricultural news and wager on a traditional harness race, you happen to recall a tweet from last night.

The tweet revealed that one of your closest 987 friends played $5 on some sort of buggy race with horses and won more than $20,000 in like two minutes.

Now, as a millennial, you are not a money person. You know money cannot buy happiness, but it can keep you well supplied with beer and wine. With an extra 20 grand you could move out of your parent’s garage or pay off two percent of your college loans. And how difficult can it be to select the exact order of horses in a race?

Crazy? Maybe. But it’s a crazy world. It’s a world where short priced winning tickets with large chucks of takeout on a gambling product of questionable attraction to all except a hardy, wonderful few, is where we have to live.

Ink about it.