Personally as an ordinary punter the main points that would make me go racing are:

1) Entrance price, if you are going to go with a group of friends of which half are probably not gamblers but want a small punt on each race (eg £2 or £3's) then the do not want to spend the equivalent of half their betting money getting in. I like a punt as do a few of my mates, but we prefer to go with the other halves who do not want to pay £10 - £15 to go somewhere that "is not there cup of tea"
2) Good service, with 30 minutes between races you want to be able to pick up your winnings ;-), put on your bet and be able to get a drink, not queue up for the whole 30 minutes to get a drink because there are only 2 staff on.
3) reasonable priced food and drink, you wnat them but not to eat into your gambling money.

4) Not to be screwed with 1/6th the odds on eachway bets on 12 runner handicaps!!

5) Decimal pricing is not an issue for me, but I can see how it would benifit newcomers when punting for the first time, my missus would understand alot more 3.0 means you get back £3 if you bet £1, and surely these are the people that you need returning to bring attendances up, the die hard punters would bet if you put it in heiroglyphics!!

6) other activities for non punters, Take the Derby this year, no funfair for the first time in over 100 years to make way for a car park for the corporates, the same people who will only go once a year. Have a few side shows to keep the WAGs happy and you have a nice earner there too.

Just my humble opinion, hope this helps from an occasional attendee.

yoyo, Royal Ascot ? Where they come up and ask for a £5ew on a 6/4 shot and offer you a fiver? Ask Barry Dennis about Ascot. We are talking about betting on horses at the races, not Royal Ascot. That's completely different. and has nothing to with betting. lol.

...and for Big Mac to claim that the racing public are put off by racings quirkiness, that's a bit rich from someone who's fame stems from being a career eccentric.

Of course Towcester is an extreme model, but simple economics of price and demand tells you that even a small increase will encourage race goers. Larger attendances, means increased revenue for bookmakers, bars, eateries. Courses need to stop using entrance fees as their sole source of income.

Racing is as good a day out as there is, but the general public are increasingly looking for value for money, which racing isn't offering.

On New Years day at Cheltenham, tatts was £25 to get in if you indeed could, there was 1 cash til at a main entrance, one for cardsl, and at least 2 thousand people were queueing outside. Inside, every bar had endless queues, each food stand had long queues, and it was impossible to sit down anywhere without another charge. How many of those once or twice a year punters will go back next new year?

Oh l forgot...........get rid of the simpleton who thought up the idea of decimal odds ,as JimRoyle would say 2.2 my @rse

Inability to change only enforces this view.

The problem I'm afraid is the decline in education. Everyone should be taught decimals and fractions.
What next? Shall I cut this pie into quarters or 0.25's ffs!!

decimals are the way of the future as I see it. What is the point in fractions? Am I missing something or is it because some people are just attatched to it? How long will it take to work out an accumulator bet that is in fractions compared to decimals?

The racing for change people seem to think that 'dumbing-down' is the way forward. Easier to understand odds, easier to understand terms. One of the best things about racing (and gambling on) is the depth of the sport and that you can study it for a lifetime and keep learning new things about it. If you can hook people to take a look at the sport first of all - hold them with some characters - then the depth and nuances and strange fractions will keep people coming back for years.

I agree with someone else on here who said that RFC need to concentrate on RACING. Organise some knock-out competitions or a league or something. Then promote characters in the game - horses and jocks (discourage retiring 3yr old champions on the flat).

The sport doesn't need massive change - it just needs to promote it's best aspects

A pound at 1.55 doesn't have to be worked out,
a pound at 4/7 does. It's not a argument.

REPORTED^ 08 Jan 02:12
Got to admit how many under 35's ask for 100/16 or 100/12, very few id say. Its all the old timers

I ALWAYS ask for the bits

Pleasegivemeanailedontip 07 Jan 23:52
The racing for change people seem to think that 'dumbing-down' is the way forward. Easier to understand odds, easier to understand terms.

But it is the way forward - its the only way forward. The problem is, IMO, that as betfair and exchange business gets bigger and bigger, without the dumb on-course bookmaking has no future. As soon as you realise the simple fact that 99% of racecourse bookmakers these days are just middlemanning, and offering you 5/2 when 11/4 is available in volume, you might well be inclined not to bet with them. The "mystique" around being a bookmaker is vanishing rapidly. The decimal odds system will just make it more transparent that they are simply taking the current market price and shaving off a margin, and hedging as and where it suits them as they please (in the vast majority of cases)

The sport doesn't need massive change - it just needs to promote it's best aspects

But the problem is, what do you promote? That the game is riddled with corruption? That without hundreds of murky betting practices that go on each day, the game wouldn't even exist in anywhere near its current form?

would be to simple for them to use a recognised format

This claims to be a copy of the initial release and they only mention "decimal" with no examples that I can see on a quick scan through. To me Decimal is the European (betfair ) system , but anything's possible of course.

http://www.ors-racing.co.uk/RacingForChange1.html

Whether or not fractional odds is a barrier to young people going racing is easily answered through proper market research using a large sample of people.

On a sample of 2 people who I know in depth - my own children who are now in their 30's - and who have been exposed to their father's passion for horse racing all their lives, have been taken to many meetings including the Arc and the Breeders Cup, I would say that their lack of interest in going racing or betting come to that has absolutely zero to do with archaic fractional odds.

Any change to decimal odds would have the effect of a single bucket of grit spread over all the snowed up roads in Britain, in changing their behaviour or interest in racing or even sport generally.

People either have an interest or they don't and I'm afraid that no amount of wishful thinking and positive action is going to change that. Years of working in the mass persuasion business taught me that you can waste an awful lot of time and money pi****g in the wind on a wish list. You are always much better off focussing on those that are already predisposed towards something. The RFC people are too afraid to lose their fees or too dumb to recognise this.

Personally I don't care what form the odds are offered in. I stopped going racing regularly when the off course tax was abolished. That meant two sets of expenses disappeared at the same time. When I did go I found it very poor value for money and I can see from this thread that nothing has changed.
I still go regularly to the dogs and because I do, I get in for the price of a racecard. If it cost the same price to go racing I would return. Its that simple!

Think that a point has been missed about younger people and betting on horses. All the younger ones i know who have a bet on Poker, Football and other sporting events but shun racing do so for a reason, Its called integrity, most of them who i have spoken to are of the overriding opinion that its**and a sport for insiders.

You only have to look at the plethora of misleading information given by our clerks to see how incompetent the sport is, and as for clamping down on the corruption etc, well lets say thta racing doesnt want to change.
And it doesnt want to give information out, look at the stats you can get in the states, re sectional timing, track variants etc and then look at the way that racing is presented over here on the television

And if you think that the powers to be wont use decimalisation to round down price "In order to simplify things" and 4/6 becomes 1.6 and 4/7 becomes 1.5 you didnt live through the rip off on 1971 when we saw what happened when the currency was altered, it happened again when i was living abroad when the Euro came into force.

It will just hasten a industry sp(just to simplify things LOL)

When I go racing I carry a sandwich plus a couple of pieces of fruit, and spend practically nothing on course, simply because I resent paying the extortionate prices charged.

I took my lady to Towcester quite recently and had to pay £8 for a burger and ***** consolation though, entrance was free.

She finds it edible, I don't. Yoyo, the only reason you have for denying me an opinion is that it doesn't suit you. You deal with 2000 punters at Ascot ? Dream on.