too bad, good place
 

The Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association released figures today showing a 26.3 percent decline in live horserace betting at Philadelphia Park for the month of April, the largest monthly decline since slot machines were introduced at Philadelphia Park in December 2006. Simulcast betting by Philadelphia Park patrons also declined by 18.1 percent for the month compared to April 2006.

That certainly doesn't sound good, but I wonder if they considered the fact that Philadelphia had over 10" of rain in April, compared to 4.25" in April 2006. That's also been about the average April rainfall over the last dozen or so years. March of this year had just under 3".

Sometimes, isolated stats don't have a whole lot of meaning. I don't know if these do or not.

Dick

Is it live racing or Total handle? as Dick says april weather wise was
terrible. The casino that was suppose to be just on the first floor,till
a new sepaerate building was completed But now the the hole building
except for just the top floor is all casino
They only have a small area for handicapping
The racing this winter season seemed better. Before Delaware and Monmouth opened the fields were big and that made the races better
I'm would think the handle would be better

There was no casino in april 2006

"Was" unfortunately is the key word here. I stopped the Friday before the Derby for a brew and to watch the Kentucky Oaks and of course make my Oaks/Derby DD wager. They used to have a nice setup. Now it feels very cramped, the bar that used to be the center with all the TV's has been taken out. I just didn't like the setup. Several old timers made it a point to tell me to checkout the Chester facility as it supposedly has a very nice simulcast setup. I can only speculate that PHA has lost a lot of handle to that facility. Too bad because as Bill said , it was a really nice place.

That bar
 

Hello jms

Yes that was a great place to hang out
The upstair sports bar was really exciting when races from NY
were going on and of course the local philly flavor of the live races
As you said that whole area is gone filled in with painfully small
tv stalls that they had spread out on 3 floors Now its all on
the top floor. Good luck going down to the paddock
The palce is just a casino with a race book upstairs

Boy I love that place but its so different now

Its all about product, if the card day after day are the same old folks doing business your going to have past performances that are just plain ugly with most races having runners with a combined lengths behind of over 20 common. For this product you should reward the people who have worked in the same place 30 some odd years with slot machines. Do not get me wrong but is the slot maching going to bring better product to the track? Old school management will nickle and dime you to death with parking, poor food, and what ever else the can slap a buck on for the chance for you to beat the odds against the short priced win mutuals. What once was nice was a time when product was better.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...04601376&EDATE

It sounds like it might be up to you racing fans in the area. The company that owns PHA now thinks the promised casino is uneccesary and they should be allowed to keep things the way they are.

The hook seems to be that their gaming license is still conditional, so there is still room to bring some pressure.

The Mayor is not happy, the horsemen are not happy and the fans are not happy. Making some noise might do some good. Write your legislators, the mayor of the township, the gaming commission, the governor and anyone else you can think of.

If enough noise is made, the greedy bastards might not be able to bribe their way out of it.

Maybe a campaign to stop the casino intrests from destroying the home of Smarty Jones.........

Dick