On Track - Oct 3, 2001

When officials at Cal Expo decided to wire their races to simulcast centers all across North America, they had no idea what they were in for.

The Sacramento-based track is now in its 10-month season and is still finding that nearly 90 percent of its bets come from bettors watching the action at one of the many off-track facilities.

With the legalization of account wagering in California on Jan. 1, 2002, the number of new fans could grow exponentially as bettors play the ponies via computer.

To catch viewers' interest at betting centers, Cal Expo added such gimmicks as a ticker with baseball, basketball and football scores across the bottom of the screen. To upgrade its telecast, the track uses digital cameras and sophisticated editing equipment.

People apparently like what they see. The average daily handle at the track doubled from $514,162 per night in fall 1996 to more than $1.03 million a night in spring 2001.

Only 10 percent of that money is bet in Sacramento. The handle continues to skyrocket, while on-track attendance has dwindled to an average of 445 fans per night last fall and 541 per night during last spring's warmer months. Ten times that number watch from elsewhere in the state and thousands more watch from outside California.

Internet Bets on Breeders Cup Still in the Air

Last year, the day before the Breeders' Cup races at Churchill Downs, officials from the organization and TV Games Network traveled to Ohio to strike a deal allowing Winticket.com, Beulah Park's account-wagering subsidiary, to accept wagers on the eight races.

Eleven months later, with the Oct. 27 Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships at Belmont Park soon approaching, no agreement is in place to cover the same situation this year.

For the second straight year, Breeders' Cup has an exclusive contract with TVG that covers online wagering and interactive voice-response wagering. This year the agreement also covers the interactive wagering company Youbet.com, because TVG and Youbet signed a strategic partnership earlier this year.

Interactive voice recognition wagering (IVR) refers to telephone account wagering systems that allow touch-tone wagering. A system that uses live operators will be able to accept wagers. Many offer both live operators and IVR.

Last year Breeders' Cup ended up selling licenses that allowed systems with automatic telephone tellers to accept Cup wagers. Licenses were not offered to companies that accept online wagers.

In 2000 TVG was only available in four states: Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland and Oregon. It handled $359,296 on the eight Breeders' Cup races.

This year, TVG is available in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Wyoming.

Youbet is available in all states except Alaska, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Utah, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

CHRB Names New Chairman

Alan Landsburg, a television producer best known for his "Biography," "That's Incredible!" and "In Search Of" series, is the new chairman of the California Horse Racing Board. The Sacramento-based CHRB unanimously elected Landsburg, a longtime horse owner and breeder, at its Sept. 21 meeting.

In addition, the board got a first look at 15 new regulations that set the stage for account wagering. Account wagering, which allows fans to bet on racing via phone or computer, becomes legal in California on Jan. 1, 2002. Those proposed regulations will get a public hearing before the board when it meets at University of California at Davis on Nov. 30.

Industry Criticized for Racing in Wake of Attacks

The sporting landscape in America, and much of the world for that matter, stood still in the wake of terrorist attacks on the United States.

Football, baseball, racing, golf and soccer events were all canceled throughout the weekend of Sept. 13-15 to honor and remember those who were lost in the attacks.

Many horseracing tracks, though, were back in action as early as Thursday, Sept. 13, just two days after the attacks on Washington, D.C. and New York.

Only Belmont Park and The Meadowlands, both within 25 miles of the carnage at the World Trade Center, were shuttered through the week. Both tracks took entries intending to reopen Saturday and then reversed themselves Friday and announced they would stay closed through the weekend.

The mutuel machines were whirring at four American tracks Wednesday and at 14 on Thursday while the search for the missing and presumed dead continued.

Washington Track Owners Lobby for Account Wagering

Ron Crockett, saying he and his fellow Emerald Downs investors "are completely committed to staying the course," is preparing to fight to capture a greater share of gambling dollars in Washington.

Crockett, Emerald Downs' president and the person responsible for building the six-year-old racetrack as a replacement for Longacres, said he will seek a change in state law that would allow account wagering by telephone. The practice, legal in several states including Oregon and California, is illegal in Washington.

Crockett told the Associated Press that his group will discuss the possibility of account wagering legislation with state politicians this spring.

Horse racing has been hurt significantly by the proliferation of other forms of gambling in the state since Longacres closed in 1992.

Crockett illustrated the point by comparing handles from comparable cards at Longacres on Sept. 18, 1992, when $1,361,347 was wagered on live races, to the $521,278 wagered on live and simulcast races last Friday at Emerald Downs. In 1992 pulltabs, punchboards and the state lottery competed with horse racing for gambling dollars. Since then casinos and card rooms have become prominent.

Hong Kong Officials Blame Offshore Activity for Loss in Revenue

Hong Kong racing officials are blaming offshore and illegal betting syndicates for dwindling turnover and low attendance at the season's opening race meeting, the Hong Kong Jockey Club said.

Their first day's betting turnover was a disappointment with just HK $840.9 million (US $107 million) generated, compared with HK $959.8 million last year and HK $914.6 in 1999.

Attendance figures also showed a decline. On the first day of racing this year, just 43,474 people attended, compared with 58,978 last year and 53,064 in 1999, the Jockey Club said.

Jockey Club chief executive Lawrence Wong blamed offshore and illegal betting syndicates for the dwindling turnover and attendance, accusing them of "robbing the treasury."

He told reporters at the end of the racing in Shatin late Sunday that "this is a great loss not only to the Jockey Club but to the people of Hong Kong."

Wong said aggressive promotion by betting syndicates cost the government an estimated HK $17 million in revenue on the first day of the new season. The club's charities and community projects lost about HK $2 million, he said.

TVG System Goes Down Briefly

Television Games Network was unable to accept wagers for 1.5 hours early Wednesday morning because of a system malfunction.

John Hindman, TVG vice president of communications, said the service went down around noon and was fixed as quickly as possible.

"It was a system malfunction that we needed to repair," Hindman said. "We had inquiries, but we were quick to run a scroll (across patrons' television screens) that said something like 'wagering has temporarily been disrupted, we appreciate your patience.' "

Hindman said there was not a significant loss in betting revenue caused by the malfunction.

Thoroughbred Sweepstakes Hits the Internet

The $1,000,000 World Thoroughbred Championships Challenge officially launched on Sept. 10 by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.

The promotion, an Internet- and e-mail-based sweepstakes to promote the Oct. 27 Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships at Belmont Park, offers participants the opportunity to win $1 million by correctly selecting the winners of all eight Breeders' Cup races. More than 100 additional prizes will be awarded to fans based on the number of winners they select.

The promotion will be advertised through Internet media including espn.com and sportsline.com.