The Standardbred Breeders and Owners of New Jersey have announced a 10-year preliminary agreement with the Meadowlands Racetrack for a sports betting revenue sharing plan which will add at least $1 million annually to the track’s racing purses, an increase of about 10 percent.
That could be coupled by a bill in the New Jersey Legislature to subsidize races by $100 million over five years. The bill would add, annually, $6 million for Meadowlands purses, $1.6 million for Freehold Raceway purses, $10 million for Monmouth Park, and $2.4 million distributed for breeder awards and stakes bonuses.
“With a bill for a five-year, $100 million purse appropriation scheduled to be introduced in the legislature shortly,” said Meadowlands Racetrack Chairman Jeff Gural, in a press release. “We are all hopeful that we will be able to continue our good work with the SBOA and bring the Meadowlands back to its stature as a premier racing venue.”
Mark Ford, the SBOANJ president, told NJ Online Gambling that the subsidy bill had a “zero percent” chance of passing in the summer, but he now believes cautiously that it could pass.
“Hopefully everything just snowballs, and we get the Meadowlands Racetrack back to where it used to be,” Ford said. “We’re picturing a resurgence.”
Officials noted that with the sports betting revenue sharing deal, only Fanduel’s sports book—which operates at the Meadowlands—is participating.
In another sports betting story, FanDuel has decided to run a promotions event where will it paid off all futures bets that picked Alabama to win the NCAAA football title more than a month before any title is decided.
Paying out a futures bet before it actually cashes has long been a tradition in Europe to generate publicity and attention for sportsbooks, the company said.
“We want to be known as being bettor friendly and it’s nice to make a little history here in the United States,” said FanDuel Group Chief Marketing Officer Mike Raffensperger in an interview with The Action Network. “We’re doing this promotion to reward our customers and to promote dialogue.”
Raffensperger said awarding Alabama with the win will immediately cost FanDuel $40,000, but could potentially cost them $400,000, when adding up all the parlays still alive that have Alabama to win the title in them.
“New Jersey is the No. 1 stop on a long line,” Raffensperger said. “This is the kind of fun that can happen in an open regulated, legal commercial market. And we love doing it.”
FanDuel officials had to check with regulators in the states (New Jersey and West Virginia) to make sure a promotion where the payout happened before a result would be legal, he said.
Also, Hard Rock Atlantic City announced it will open a live sports book in early 2019.
Exactly when Hard Rock could open a sports book was complicated by Hard Rock’s stadium naming deal in Miami with the NFL. However, the recent update of the National Football League’s policy on commercial gaming lifted the restriction on Hard Rock’s future sportsbook operation in Atlantic City.
“The forthcoming launch of the Hard Rock Sportsbook in New Jersey will mark another step towards becoming a significant player in the national and international sports betting and online gaming industry,” said Kresimir Spajic, senior vice president of online gaming at Hard Rock International, in a press statement.
Gaming Innovation Group has signed a contract with Hard Rock International to operate the sports book at the casino.
