Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

So much to say/add to this---not disagreeing or agreeing with you on anything................well thought out and said.

I guess I'll add this:  (not pointed at you Murph, just a generalization.)

1.  If you want sprint car racing to stay at a grassroots level, stop bitching about purses.  Just stop.  To stay at a grass-roots level means not involving big money.  It means letting these teams and drivers run on their own dime and figure out how to make it profitable on their own.  We stay out of it, because it's grass roots. 

2.  If you want sprint car racing to take the next step, up purses, and jump to the level of other high-paying sports, quit bitching about corporate sponsorships, drivers who conform to corporate rules, and any other means of injecting money into what is a grass-roots sport.  Just stop.  A few thousand people at a county fairgrounds, paying $30 for a seat, are not going to support the money that is showing up at these shows.  Period.  

Either way, people need to make their f@#$ing mind up and pick a side.  If you want to bitch about purses, while talking out the other side of your mouth about ticket prices, you must embrace the manner in which other sources of funding can come.  If you're completely happy with how things are going without corporate America and sport's betting, stop bitching because the purses are not to your liking.  Pick a side and stick to it.  You can't have it both ways!

That is all.  

Gettin pretty juiced up there buddy. But no thank you, this is America and I don't have to pick a side and I'm free to bitch when I desire. I don't understand your reasoning that all sprint car fans only one of two choices? Me, I'm not choosing anything, I'm just going to watch the circus.

You can choose either path, and can bitch about whatever you want---free country.  But we won't have higher purses without other sources of revenue.  We cannot remain "grassroots" unless we are willing to accept our sport will be stuck in the mud and will not grow.  So, whether you like the fact that there are 2 choices or not, there are 2 choices.  Racing cannot remain grassroots, and expand.  Racing cannot expand without finding a way to tap into other streams of money.  

I, like you, don't care about purses, engine costs, or any of that crap.  I just go to the races, and enjoy whatever races are put in front of me.  You can dig all you want, but you won't find a single post with me bitching about ticket prices, purses, the cost of racing, conspiracy garbage, promoter greed, favoritism, streaming costs, rules, or anything of the like.  I like the Outlaws, the High Limit, and the Knoxville weekly shows and everything those 3 entities are, and will be required to do to keep themselves in business in the future. 

Wait, I do have one dislike----I hate empty inverts.  But I generally don't attend or watch shows that have them, so that's me just exercising my freedom.  

As I read it, High-Limit doesn't get any money from the gambling deal. How does the gambling money help sprint car racing? How has it helped USAC so far?

Do higher purses and prices make sprint car racing a better product or do you just dig all the nascar type hype? Just throwing money around doesn't always equate to a better product. It's dirt racing, so think about the "lipstick on a pig" analogy. Would you like to see sprint car racing at the nascar level? I would not, and I still like inverts!

I was surprised when Dirttrackr reported the same thing.   

The theory is that gambling will drive more fan involvement.   The more fan involvement the more butts in seats and more eyes on streaming.   If it is a random High Limit show in the summer, you may not make plans to watch.   If it is a random High Limit show in the summer that you have money riding on, you will make plans to watch.   I guess we need to wait and see if the numbers prove out the theory. 

Well, I guess that is a theory, just not a well thought-out one. If you're expecting that to attract new fans, you're defying some logic. A gambler who has money riding on a race isn't more likely to attend the race. He's more likely to follow the results on his phone. You don't even have to pay for Flo to do that. And you can follow all the sports you are betting on at the same time. This won't do a thing for racing.

Have Brad and Kyle thought about stage racing yet? 

Like everything else in our society, it might not be "rigged" in the sense of cheating, but its set up so that companies running the betting are gonna come out on top over time, just like casinos

I prefer informal betting among friends....

I was surprised when Dirttrackr reported the same thing.   

The theory is that gambling will drive more fan involvement.   The more fan involvement the more butts in seats and more eyes on streaming.   If it is a random High Limit show in the summer, you may not make plans to watch.   If it is a random High Limit show in the summer that you have money riding on, you will make plans to watch.   I guess we need to wait and see if the numbers prove out the theory. 

So, I could be wrong, someone might start watching racing because of betting.  I can't speak for everyone, however I can share what happened with my son.  He went to college last year to play football.  College football along with classes is more than a full time job.  At Thanksgiving last year, his football season had just gotten done, he tells me that one of his friends is getting into sports betting and he has a code with prizepicks where they'll match my initial deposit up to $100, but he's not 19 so he can't sign up so he thinks I should.  I said sure, I've always thought about checking it out.  I threw $100 in, which meant I had $200 to bet.  I looked through the bets multiple times and was confused and for whatever reason I made a bet for $20 on a quarterback going over on his yards and won.  Before I made that bet I looked through them for two days and was confused and thought it was just pure luck and chance and I decided it wasn't for me.  Fast forward a couple weeks, my son texts me and asks if I've been betting and I told him it didn't interest me much.  He asks if I want him to do some bets instead of it just sitting there.  I told him have fun, I've blown $100 on a lot dumber things and we can split the money (I did give him all the money when it was all said and done).  This was the middle of December.  I didn't really ask about it and he'd update me once in a while but I really had no interest and didn't understand anyway and was just waiting for him to say he gambled the money away.  When Mahomes threw the touchdown in overtime to win the Super Bowl, my son texted me and said "Thank god this game went to overtime and ended the way it did, that last touchdown Mahomes threw just made us $250.  At this point I logged in to see how he had been doing.  He had taken the $220 that was in there and turned that into right around $2,500 in about a month and a half. 

At this point I started asking questions.  I'm far from an expert but all of the following is what he told me or at least how I understood it.  Some friends of his (about ten of them) went in on this "discord" (I have to be honest, I have no idea what a discord is) for $100 a month that gave them betting advice but not just on football, all kinds of sports NASCAR included but more interesting was e-sports also being something you could bet on.  The secret to sports betting is parlays (for those that don't know that's where you make like 6 bets together, if they all hit you make 25 times your money, if 5 of the 6 hit you make 10 times your money and if 4 of the 6 hit I think you get your money back).  His strategy was to take a team and bet the over on everyone, for example the Chiefs he would make a bet that Mahomes would get over on his yards and TDs and the top two recievers he would bet the over on their yards and TDs.  So if Mahomes had a great game, he more than likely was going to be throwing it to his top two recievers the most.  He would also bet the under on everything in case they had a bad game.  He would make this bet with multiple teams.  This was the interesting part to me, he lost WAY more than he won but if he'd hit a 6 out of 6 parlay or even a couple 5 out of 6 parlays over the week, he was still making money.  Unfortunately they've changed the rules this year and you can still do parlays but if you have more than two of them from the same team the payout is reduced quite a bit.

This is what I find interesting, he bet a lot on e-sports events or games or whatever you call them but never had a desire to watch them.  His discord was telling him how to bet on it but he had no desire to watch it.  So my point is (I know it's a really long way to get there lol), there could be a lot of betting on sprint car racing but I wouldn't say that's indicitave of people actually watching and enjoying sprint car racing, it could be lots of people betting what a discord tells them to.  But, I think it's cool to see.

I was surprised when Dirttrackr reported the same thing.   

The theory is that gambling will drive more fan involvement.   The more fan involvement the more butts in seats and more eyes on streaming.   If it is a random High Limit show in the summer, you may not make plans to watch.   If it is a random High Limit show in the summer that you have money riding on, you will make plans to watch.   I guess we need to wait and see if the numbers prove out the theory. 

So, I could be wrong, someone might start watching racing because of betting.  I can't speak for everyone, however I can share what happened with my son.  He went to college last year to play football.  College football along with classes is more than a full time job.  At Thanksgiving last year, his football season had just gotten done, he tells me that one of his friends is getting into sports betting and he has a code with prizepicks where they'll match my initial deposit up to $100, but he's not 19 so he can't sign up so he thinks I should.  I said sure, I've always thought about checking it out.  I threw $100 in, which meant I had $200 to bet.  I looked through the bets multiple times and was confused and for whatever reason I made a bet for $20 on a quarterback going over on his yards and won.  Before I made that bet I looked through them for two days and was confused and thought it was just pure luck and chance and I decided it wasn't for me.  Fast forward a couple weeks, my son texts me and asks if I've been betting and I told him it didn't interest me much.  He asks if I want him to do some bets instead of it just sitting there.  I told him have fun, I've blown $100 on a lot dumber things and we can split the money (I did give him all the money when it was all said and done).  This was the middle of December.  I didn't really ask about it and he'd update me once in a while but I really had no interest and didn't understand anyway and was just waiting for him to say he gambled the money away.  When Mahomes threw the touchdown in overtime to win the Super Bowl, my son texted me and said "Thank god this game went to overtime and ended the way it did, that last touchdown Mahomes threw just made us $250.  At this point I logged in to see how he had been doing.  He had taken the $220 that was in there and turned that into right around $2,500 in about a month and a half. 

At this point I started asking questions.  I'm far from an expert but all of the following is what he told me or at least how I understood it.  Some friends of his (about ten of them) went in on this "discord" (I have to be honest, I have no idea what a discord is) for $100 a month that gave them betting advice but not just on football, all kinds of sports NASCAR included but more interesting was e-sports also being something you could bet on.  The secret to sports betting is parlays (for those that don't know that's where you make like 6 bets together, if they all hit you make 25 times your money, if 5 of the 6 hit you make 10 times your money and if 4 of the 6 hit I think you get your money back).  His strategy was to take a team and bet the over on everyone, for example the Chiefs he would make a bet that Mahomes would get over on his yards and TDs and the top two recievers he would bet the over on their yards and TDs.  So if Mahomes had a great game, he more than likely was going to be throwing it to his top two recievers the most.  He would also bet the under on everything in case they had a bad game.  He would make this bet with multiple teams.  This was the interesting part to me, he lost WAY more than he won but if he'd hit a 6 out of 6 parlay or even a couple 5 out of 6 parlays over the week, he was still making money.  Unfortunately they've changed the rules this year and you can still do parlays but if you have more than two of them from the same team the payout is reduced quite a bit.

This is what I find interesting, he bet a lot on e-sports events or games or whatever you call them but never had a desire to watch them.  His discord was telling him how to bet on it but he had no desire to watch it.  So my point is (I know it's a really long way to get there lol), there could be a lot of betting on sprint car racing but I wouldn't say that's indicitave of people actually watching and enjoying sprint car racing, it could be lots of people betting what a discord tells them to.  But, I think it's cool to see.

Interesting thread.   I never looked into betting in USAC.  Does anyone have any experience with it?   Every once in a while, I would hear an announcer on Flo talk about the betting odds of different drivers.   I just assumed that the only bet would be on the win.

I guess there are some other things that you could bet on in a race event.   Top qualifier.  Heat Win races.   Hard charger.   Number of spots Hard Charger advances.   

I have gone to Vegas a couple of times for the Super Bow.   There are litterally pages of different bets that you can make on the Super Bowl.   Some of them are completely random.   (coin toss, color of gaterade poured on the coach, over/under of the lenght of the national anthem, first score, first turnover, what song the half time entertaining opens with, etc)  Putting together a Parlay is a fun activity for the Super Bowl.   I just wonder how it translates into our sport.

Interesting story, & the conclusion is: they bet to bet, doesn't equate to any interest in the sport

To me its a gimmick, if some people like it, go right ahead

Terrible idea!!! Along with the so called "charter sytem"! Leave that to Crapcar and sports betting to the tainted NFL! Larson and Sweet have no interest in bettering sprint racing, them and FLO are all about the money and could care less about the future of the sport!!!!