pari-mutuel wagering

In a Zoom call with members of the racing media, NYRA lifted the curtain Friday regarding the drop in Computer Assisted Wagering play after the racing organization put certain "guardrails" in place intended to limit the wagers of the CAW players. In July 2021, NYRA became the first racing organization in the United States to establish a timing restriction for CAW activity, shutting off the win pool to CAW players with two minutes to post. A more significant step was taken in Dec. 2025 when CAW players were not allowed...

The Kentucky legislature has passed a sweeping bill that opens the door to fixed-odds wagering in the state and bars a cap being placed on the number of mares bred to a stallion there. In its final passage Wednesday, the 150-page bill passed out of the state House on a 64-19 vote, with 17 no-votes. It was delivered to Governor Andy Beshear's office on Thursday with a veto-proof majority. HB 904 was introduced into the state legislature by Republican Representatives Matthew Koch and Michael Meredith. Unlike the fluctuating odds that...

A floor amendment has been added to HB 904--a sweeping piece of legislation seeking to legalize fixed-odds wagering in Kentucky--that is designed to essentially ensure no limit can be imposed on the number of mares bred to a stallion in the state. It requires that the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation select and use an entity to act as "a registrar of Thoroughbreds" in the state, meaning it could choose an organization other than The Jockey Club, which is the current breed registry for the U.S., Canada and Puerto...

Last week, Republican Representatives Matthew Koch and Michael Meredith introduced into the Kentucky state legislature a sweeping gambling bill with several key components, including legalized fixed-odds wagering in Kentucky along with efforts to essentially expand and modernize its gambling infrastructure. Unlike the fluctuating odds that make up pari-mutuel betting, fixed odds is a form of betting in which the payout odds are set and agreed upon at the time the wager is placed. Crucially, they do not change. Among other aspects of the bill, it requires tracks and tote companies...

Fixed-odds wagering has already made it to states like New Jersey and Colorado. It could also be a fixture in Kentucky thanks to a bill just introduced into the state legislature by Republican Representatives Matthew Koch and Michael Meredith. HB 904 is a sweeping piece of legislation with several key components designed to essentially expand and modernize the gambling infrastructure in the state. The contextual background of this bill appears to be an attempt to seriously grapple with the impacts from Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) on the betting pools. Unlike...

Patrons arriving for Thursday's races at Santa Anita were met by something new, gaming terminals called Racing On Demand. Racing On Demand terminals--like HHR machines--are a form of pari-mutuel wagering on previously run races. The Paulick Report was first with the story. Twenty-six machines were operating on Thursday, and they were on the ground floor of the grandstand in an area formerly known as the Horse Wizard Lounge. No decision has yet been reached regarding how many machines will ultimately be made available to Santa Anita patrons. That decision may...

Coupled 1 and 1A pari-mutuel entries in New York could soon be eliminated if a New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) proposal that got advanced to the public commentary phase on Monday passes an eventual final vote by commissioners. According to a brief written by NYSGC general counsel Edmund Burns that was included in the informational packet for the Mar. 24 meeting, the proposal has the backing of the New York Racing Association, Finger Lakes racetrack, the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and The New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. "Those...

How did we get hooked on this sport? We all have stories about how our love affair developed and blossomed. The TDN reached out to numerous notable people in the industry to get their stories to find out how they got hooked and stayed hooked on the sport. Rocco Landesman, Broadway Producer and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts I've always been an excitement junkie. I love the risk, love the adrenaline you get from that. I've had a career in the Broadway Theater and there's nothing...

Just shy of a century ago, Thoroughbred racing was undergoing a massive transformation in breeding and technology that would set it on a path towards expansion. The importing of international sires, the building of new racetracks, the development of starting gates and the implementation of what was called the totalisator, a device that tracked odds and payouts for pari-mutuel wagering, became all the rage into the 1930s. As you probably know, the 'tote' became linked to a board that everyone on-track could see and was intended to democratize laying a...

They first showed up in Kentucky in 2021. Called gray games, they looked and acted like a slot machines, but the companies that manufactured the machines made the spurious claim that they were legal because they were actually games of skill. Before long, the machines grew to be so popular that, by some estimates, there were more than 5,000 of them, taking up residence in bars, restaurants and convenience stores across the state. "They spread like rabbits," said Majority Floor Leader Senator Damon Thayer of the games that got their...

A month ago, the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation (TIF), a think tank that uses independent research to try and drive changes in the sport, brought to light an example of what it said was brazen quinella pari-mutuel pool manipulation at Gulfstream Park. The scheme was apparently designed to jack up the odds the manipulator would receive on winning bets placed with non-pari-mutuel offshore bookies that paid on-track prices. On Wednesday, Pat Cummings, the TIF's executive director, told an audience at the Global Symposium on Racing hosted by the University of Arizona...

Jim McIngvale (Mattress Mack) made history when the Houston Astros won the World Series. He made bets that returned $75 million when they won, the largest win ever in the history of sports betting. The bets were tied into a promotion McIngvale has used many times at his Gallery Furniture Stores in Houston. If he wins the bet, his customers get free mattresses. He's great at getting publicity for himself and his stores, but never had he seen anything like what happened with this bet, the story of which became...