>> Wonder what it would be like if there was little regulation, if you could drug the horses and the jockeys, if they could fight each other during the race, if the bets and odds weren't secure by government regulation.
Thoroughbred racing has a long established history on which those regulations are based. While they have been codified by state legislatures, that codification serves only to give legal processes some ability to put violators on trial. It does little to curtail the violations.
The local racetrack in our town recently (in the last few years) decided they needed slot machines to keep the revenue up. So they got an amendment to our state constitution to allow it. The amendment provides for "games of skill" -- video poker and games based on horse racing. Over the course of the last five years the tracks here have unilaterally expanded the definition to include ordinary slot machines, craps, roulette, and pretty much every other game of chance. No skill involved, even though the regulations specifically preclude such gaming.
Here, we have one wealthy casino owner with a de facto monopoly, and without any competition games have an average return to the casino of some 93%. In Vegas, where there is competition, you can routinely find casinos producing average returns to players of 98% or better.
Horse racing today is nothing more than a feeder for the state-sanctioned gambling monopolies that are designed to separate the poor -- in our case, the VERY poor, from their money.
So, how good are those regulations, really? In 110 years of horse racing here, I don't know that there were ever any major doping scandals and sure as hell no problems with the para mutuel systems because it was in the racetrack's interest to have accountability.
With highly regulated slot operations, consumers get screwed worse than ever. The ONLY reason you can have confidence that slot machines are even random draws is because IGT, the manufacturer, has a reputation to maintain.
See what happens when a card counter walks into a casino and starts taking them for their money. They'll be called a cheat, even though it isn't cheating, and they will be bounced out and permanently banned in every casino in the country. Government regulation is no protection for the consumer in the gambling arena. |
