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According to data released Friday by Equibase, handle in 2023 fell by $447,759,362 for a decline of 3.7 percent. Had handle not rebounded in December, which saw a 6.62% increase, the figures would have looked much worse. Outside of the COVID year of 2020, this was the steepest decline based on percentage of handle since 2011. A total of $11,658,624,859 was wagered in 2023. "I think we got quite a blip coming out of the pandemic when we were the only game in town," said Marshall Gramm, an economics professor,...

Delaware Park Casino & Racing, the Delaware Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, the Delaware Jockeys Health and Welfare Benefit Fund and the Delaware Park Jockeys Association teamed up Saturday to donate $20,000 to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund. The check was presented after the tenth race at Delaware Park Saturday. Over the course of the live racing season, each jockey donates a dollar from each mount fee and Delaware Park Casino & Racing, the Delaware Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and the Delaware Jockeys Health and Welfare Benefit Fund each match the dollar. The...

The convicted New York-based harness racing veterinarian Louis Attilio Grasso, who is scheduled to report to federal prison Jan. 24 to begin serving a 50-month sentence for his admitted role in peddling drugs in the 2020 racehorse doping conspiracy sweep of arrests, was arraigned Friday in Pennsylvania on charges that he swindled $21,646 from a casino over the past week by allegedly conspiring with a dealer in a cheating scheme. According to stories first reported by the Pennsylvania news outlet the Times Leader and the gaming industry site Casino.org, security...

Pennsylvania casinos have been greenlighted to reopen as of Monday, Jan. 4, rekindling revenue streams that fund Thoroughbred purses in the state. Governor Tom Wolf announced Dec. 30 that because COVID-19 mitigation efforts have been working to tamp down the spread of the pandemic, he will allow more stringent safety restrictions that went into effect Dec. 12 to expire as planned. But that doesn't mean a full-blown opening for the 13 casinos in the state: Mitigation efforts will roll back to what they were on Dec. 11, which still caps...

Gulfstream Park will reopen its casino Thursday, June 18, it was announced Thursday. The newly redesigned casino floor will open Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. Gulfstream is following all recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), state and local authorities and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Gulfstream's reopening plan has also been approved by Broward County, the City of Hallandale Beach and the Florida Department of Business...

The Oaklawn Park casino has been given the green light by Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson to resume operations May 18. During his press briefing May 7, Hutchinson announced that the state's three casinos can reopen, but only at one-third capacity and that stringent social distancing requirements will be in place. Oaklawn's casino has been closed since Mar. 16 and the shutdown had started to affect purses. Under the worst-case scenario, the casino would be closed for an extended period of time and purses would have to be reduced at the...

This text is an abridged version of today's Free Data Friday release from the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation. Read the full version here. As the famous proverb goes--the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now. Despite few tracks going forward in recent weeks and little to no competition for wagering, Oaklawn and Gulfstream have reduced purses, blaming the loss of subsidies from now shuttered casinos and the lack of on-track handle. Oaklawn set a new record for single day handle last Saturday, with...

Barely 18 hours after a state-mandated Dec. 31 deadline elapsed for having a purse contract in place, the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (ITHA) lashed out at Arlington International Racecourse and its publicly traded ownership, Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), claiming that the gaming company "deceived Illinois" and is now "threatening the future of live racing at Arlington by refusing to commit" to funding adequate purses for the 2020 meet. The ITHA's allegations were listed in a point-by-point press release sent to news organizations late on New Year's Day, and the top...