Who is HANA? Member Demographics

Age- Gender - Term of Participation - Education - Location

As part of our recent HANA member survey, we captured some demographic data for the group, something we've all long wanted -- which goes some ways to answering "Who is HANA, anyway?". Not surprisingly, much of it closely aligns with the known demographics of horseplayers nationwide, but some things might be more unique to HANA.

Go to any track on an average day and two things will likely be immediately evident -- most people there will be male, and most will be middle aged or better. Attracting women and younger patrons has long been a concern for the sport, it's likewise a point of interest for HANA.

Age

18-25: 1%
26-34: 3%
35-49: 27%
50-64: 49%
65+:19%

Gender

Male: 96%
Female: 3%
Decline to answer: 1%

From the age numbers, you could guess that there is a strong correlation with how long our members have been horseplayers, and you'd be right, more than 75% of our members have been horseplayers for more than 20 years.

Years of playing

0-5: 6%
6-10: 5%
11-20: 12%
21-30: 24%
30+: 54%

HANA members are the backbone of the sport, long time bettors that have put untold dollars through the windows over the years. They know the industry very well. However, these demographics also reflect upon a fundamental truth for the industry -- racing has simply not attracted a younger generation of players, and desperately needs to broaden and strengthen its customer base.

We appreciate all members tremendously, regardless of age or gender, and will continue full force to try to attract all types of members, but this does make one wonder if we could be doing more to attract some of the under-represented groups. We've recently experimented with some targeted advertisements on sites like Facebook in an effort to get the group in front of a different demographic, and we're open to any ideas and suggestions from members towards that end. We know that there simply aren't as many females and younger folks involved in racing, but we'd like to get as many of them as possible, their feedback is vital for everyone.

One really interesting thing that stood out in the demographic data was the education level of our group. I'm not sure what the results are for the entire population of horseplayers, but HANA members as a group are very well educated. For the US at large, roughly 30% of the population has a Bachelor Degree or more, HANA clocks in almost double that rate.

Education Level

No College: 8%
Some College: 33%
Bachelors or Higher: 58%

Those are pretty impressive stats, folks, likely reflective of many things -- among them the type of person who is attracted to handicapping in the first place, the above age demographics, and, possibly, some things about HANA specifically.

Location

HANA is very pleased to have a very broad geographic distribution of members. We seek to represent members on the issues in every state, province, and locale in North America, and the data proves this out. They are so broad based that I'm not going to report them all, but here are the top locations:

11%: California
11%: New York
6%: Ontario
6%: Florida
6%: Kentucky
5%: New Jersey
5%: Pennsylvania
5%: Texas
4%: Massachusetts
4%: Illinois
3%: Maryland
3%: Minnesota

Overall, slightly more than 9% of our members reside in Canada, with the remainder being US based.

Next up we will look at betting stats. How often do members play, what do they like and don't like, how often do they play and how much do they bet?

If you would like to join 1400 concerned horseplayers and have your voice heard please click this link. It's free and you can help change racing for the better.

The HANA member survey was done last month, and contained 50 questions for horseplayers. The response to sample size ratio allows us to say that the survey results are statistically valid with 95% confidence.