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Friday, October 3, 2008

Press Release: Fotias & Dr. Z Join HANA Advisory Board

Horseplayers Association of North America (HANA) Announces Cary Fotias and Dr. William Ziemba Join HANA’s Advisory Board

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


(Charlottesville, Virginia. October 3, 2008): The Horseplayers Association of North America is pleased to announce that Cary Fotias and Dr. William Ziemba have joined HANA’s Advisory Board as its first two members.

Mr. Fotias spent almost a decade on Wall Street as a currency trader, but was lured to racing and fulfilled a dream of becoming a full time handicapper and has done so for the last 16 years. He is currently the Founder and President of Equiform, a New York City firm that produces The XTRAS and The SHORTS, which are handicapping products for evaluating current condition and form cycles. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed handicapping book, Blinkers Off, which describes an innovative numerical approach to form-cycle analysis.

His philosophy meshes well with HANA’s goals as he is a vocal proponent of lower takeouts and delivering our product in a better way. In addition he has a strong interest in the cutting-edge concept of betting exchanges and how they might be developed in the U.S. He feels the game would prosper if it would only adapt to the economic and technological realities of the information age.

Dr. William T. Ziemba is the Alumni Professor of Financial Modeling and Stochastic Optimization, Emeritus in the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia where he taught from 1968 to 2004. He now teaches as a visiting professor. To horseplayers however, he is best known for co-writing the book “Dr. Z’s Beat the Racetrack” which revolutionized the way that horseplayers wagered. He has also co-written a new book titled “Handbook of Sports and Lottery Markets".

“Seeing that membership has been growing rapidly, we feel that an advisory board was a good next step for our group,” said HANA President Jeff Platt, “and we are thrilled that Dr. Z and Cary have chosen to join us.”

HANA’s Advisory Board is being assembled to offer input to HANA members and to act as a sounding board for its direction and mission. It will be adding new members in the near future.

The Horseplayers Association of North America is a grassroots group of horseplayers, not affiliated with any organization, who are not pleased with the direction the game has taken. HANA believes that both tracks and horseman groups have become bogged down with industry infighting and have completely forgotten something: The importance of the customer. HANA hopes, through proactive change on several key issues (including but not limited to), open signal access, lower effective takeouts, affordable data and customer appreciation, the industry’s handle losses can be reversed. HANA is currently made up of more than 200 horseplayers (both harness and thoroughbred) from almost all states and Canadian provinces. It currently represents over ten million dollars of yearly racing handle.

Our web address is http://www.horseplayersassociation.com and interested horseplayers can sign up there for free. We are horseplayers, just like you and we are trying to make a difference. We need and appreciate your support.


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