The first race at Monmouth Park on August 5 took on historic overtones—the race and those that follow now offer fixed-odds wagers, something commonplace in the U.K., Ireland and Australia.
You may place your bet 24 hours prior to the race and whatever odds the horse had at that time, is the odds you get when the gates open. In most cases it’s a good thing; for example, a 7-1 bet doesn’t end at 2-5 odds at race time, as does parimutuel. Then again, it could also work the other way. A 7-1 horse could end up 15-1, but not in fixed odds. The system debuted for the first time in the U.S. with a soft launch at the Oceanport N.J, track.
Monmouth Park operator Dennis Drazin pushed for this innovation as a way to attract a younger audience, according to NJ Online Gambling.
The most important thing to know is that “fixed odds” doesn’t mean you can get that number any time you like. The fixed part is that “the price you bet is the price you get.” Otherwise, the fixed-odds board is as fluid as its parimutuel counterpart as the start of the race nears.
“We need something to attract a lot of new customers, and the idea of fixed odds has always appealed to me,” Drazin said.
Drazin also sees a day when sports betting and horse race betting come under the same umbrella. He said 100,000 annual horse races globally is much larger than a few thousand games in America.
“Five years from now, fixed-odds will be 50 percent of the handle on horse racing in New Jersey,” Drazin predicted. “Younger people love it because they are used to a sports betting mentality. A lot of older bettors, they are more reluctant to try something new.”
BetMakers executive Dallas Baker told NJ Online Gambling that fixed-odd races now limited to Monmouth Park will not be lonely that long. “It will change in a couple of weeks.”
Some one dozen tracks already agreed to give it a try, with Colorado primed to be the second state to offer it.
New Jersey-based lobbyist Bill Pascrell III listed Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, Washington state, Florida and maybe New York as almost sure bets.
But not everybody is on board.
The Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey and Meadowlands Racetrack operator Jeff Gural believe fixed-odds races will cannibalize parimutuel wagering, causing everyone to lose out.
That thinking explains why the two harness tracks in New Jersey won’t accept fixed odds yet.
BetMakers promised New Jersey thoroughbred horsemen that the new twist will not hurt their bottom lines. In the early going, only win, place, and show wagers fall under fixed-odds launch. Trifectas and other more exotic bets remain unaffected.
Publicizing fixed odds in New Jersey has rarely gone beyond word-of-mouth at Monmouth Park, where patrons receive an explanatory pamphlet. However, soon as the website features racing from multiple tracks later this year, that could change.
