Keeneland Reduces Daily Double Takeout

The price of wagering in Daily Double pools at the Keeneland spring meet is going down as the Lexington track addresses high takeout on one of its core wagers. It's a move experts have called for and hopefully increases enough interest and churn—winnings returned to the betting pools—to be a winner for players, the track, and horsemen. Keeneland will reduce the takeout on the Daily Double, which is offered on every Keeneland race except the finale, from 22% to 15%. Takeout is the amount of money from the pool retained largely for the track and purses. The reduced rate means that 85% of the pari-mutuel pool will be paid out to winning players, as compared with 78% under the previous rate. "This pricing is advantageous to our core horseplayers but also is a great opportunity for emerging bettors to try horse racing's equivalent of a 'two-game parlay,' " said Keeneland director of wagering development Jim Goodman. I couldn't agree more, and while I like the idea of at least trying lower takeout in most any pool as a means to bring people to the game and increase interest in the wagering product—an effort that hopefully pays off long-term with increased overall revenue for tracks and horsemen—too often the low rates are offered in multi-leg wagers such as the Pick 5. Those wagers are very difficult for players to successfully navigate and there's little opportunity for churn as the players' wagers are tied up for multiple races. Winning players of the Daily Double will be very likely to reinvest in the next double pool or another similar quick turnaround wager. Wagering experts on a panel at the 2017 University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program's Global Symposium on Racing said tracks that lower takeout should look at single-race wagers. While the double is two races, it's an improvement over providing customers deals in wagers such as the Pick 5. "I don't personally understand why 15% takeout is needed on a Pick 5 bet, where the takeout only comes out one time and that money can be tied up for two, three, four, even five races," said Bill Nader, who now serves as president and CEO of the Thoroughbred Owners of California. "The industry is going to get a small number, relative to what it could get on lower takeout on win, place, show, and exactas." That panel also called for eliminating breakage, an amount of money where most tracks round down payouts to the nearest dime, which with a $2 minimum wager, means 20-cent increments. Some tracks round down to the nearest nickel, resulting in 10-cent increments. In 2022 Kentucky made the move to penny breakage—which effectively returns more money to winning players. In the first 49 race dates that penny breakage was in place in Kentucky, the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation estimated that an additional $1.1 million went to horseplayers from the win, place, and show pools. In May, Washington will be the second state to embrace this move when Emerald Downs opens its meet with penny breakage, meaning a horse that would have paid $4.20 will now pay up to $4.39. The track estimates that penny breakage will return approximately $400,000 in additional payouts to bettors. Unlike other sports gambling, betting on racing helps fund the game itself. That makes it difficult to match the low takeout found in sports betting. But, as racing courts the influx of legal sports bettors, it's important that the gambling product be as competitive as possible to take advantage of this opportunity to bring in new horseplayers.