Scott Daruty

It was déjà vu all over again at June's California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) meeting. Three months after a contentious meeting that saw board members vote unanimously to give race dates to Pleasanton Racetrack for a Thoroughbred meet this fall (in opposition to the wishes of Southern California track operators), the CHRB wrestled with another weighty conundrum: How to fund horse racing in California for the next fiscal year. Ultimately, the board approved what was termed a "compromise" funding model that will see each racing association cover the "direct costs"...

A deal that Del Mar has made with a titan of Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) provides a rare glimpse into the tremendous sway that individual players can wield over track and racing officials, the potentially lopsided economic ramifications of such deals, and the tremendous pressures that California executives are under with competing jurisdictions that enjoy purse subsidies not available in the Golden State. It also turns a spotlight onto a world largely hidden from the public eye-one that industry leaders are generally loathe to discuss publicly, and in which just...

Last June, Pat Cummings, executive director of the National Thoroughbred Alliance and former executive director of the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, issued a stark warning about the encroaching impacts from Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) to the men and women trying to forge a living through horse racing in the Golden State. CAW players constitute a small group of mostly anonymous, high-volume gamblers with an outsized impact on the betting markets--including in California--due to their use of sophisticated wagering technologies and the inducements offered to them in the form of attractive rates...

After a months-long $400 million plus war of attrition between the two rival California sports wagering measures on this year's ballot, the endgame was a stalemate, both beat down into the muddy trenches--just as the polling had indicated. The Associated Press made the call that both measures are sunk, though the official tally is far from in. With less than 50% of the ballots counted as of writing, roughly 70% voted against Proposition 26, and some 83% voted against Proposition 27. "Ugly," said Pat Cummings, executive director of the Thoroughbred...

For over two years, the simulcasting signal from 1/ST-operated racetracks, along with several others around the country, has been missing in Arizona--the residual fall-out from a long-simmering dispute between the owners of Arizona Downs and the arm of The Stronach Group (TSG) tasked with distributing the company's signal. In both California and Arizona, stakeholders argue that this simulcasting blackout has hit both the bettors and the industry--by how much appears open to debate. A recent analysis by the Arizona Horseman's Benevolent & Protective Association (AZHBPA) of the projected lost revenue...

In a special meeting Friday, the Arizona Racing Commission upheld its earlier decision to enforce a state law passed last year requiring all simulcast providers that send their races into Arizona to offer the products uniformly among all tracks and all their Off-Track Betting parlors (OTB). "I didn't expect anything different," said Bob Hutton, president of the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA), about the decision. The meeting, which went on for two-and-a-half hours, was well attended by individuals on both sides of the stand-off, said Hutton. "It was...

The simulcasting stand-off between an arm of The Stronach Group (TSG) tasked with distributing the company's signal and the Arizona Department of Gaming has nearly reached the two-week mark, and the affected stakeholders are sending out mixed signals of their own as to its impact. The issue surrounds a state law passed last year requiring all simulcast providers that send their races into Arizona to offer the products uniformly among all tracks and all their Off-Track Betting parlors (OTB). On Jan. 24 of this year, the Arizona Racing Commission passed a...