Article that came out yesterday- fixed odds will come within several weeks to months. Patience is required.

Horse Racing

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Fixed Odds Betting On Horse Racing Still Coming To NJ, ButTiming’s Uncertain

By John Brennan

For more than 18months, backers of bringing fixed odds wagering to New Jersey have been citing “soon, we hope” as a timetable.

With only one weekend left in Monmouth Park’s thoroughbred racingschedule at the Oceanport track, however, an NJOnline Gambling query to track operator Dennis Drazin resulted instead in a pivot to the “long game.”

Opening Day, Monmouth Park, May 2022: Can we be assured that therewill be fixed odds betting available?

“I don’t think there’s any question about it — we already have theequipment,” Drazin replied while in Newark as a panelist Wednesday on the finalday of Seton Hall Law School’s “Gaming, Compliance And Integrity Program BootCamp.”

So with that out of the way, what could bring the new form ofhorse racing betting to New Jersey sooner?

Nearing the finish line

Drazin said that he believes the final regulatory oversightsignoff on fixed odds from the Attorney General’s Office is coming “within thenext couple of days.” Dallas Baker, who is spearheading the push for Australian-basedcompany BetMakers, said that upon final approval, fixed odds in theory could be offered “after a week’s worth of work.”

That’s too late for Sunday’s finale at Monmouth Park, but inOctober there are seven “Monmouth Park-at-Meadowlands” turf racing dates at theEast Rutherford track that is much better known for its harness racing.

The thoroughbreds take over the Big M on Oct. 1-2, Oct. 8-9, andOct. 15, then share dates on Oct. 23 and Oct. 30 with standardbreds.

The latter two dates will have harness racing in the afternoonfollowed by the thoroughbreds holding first post at 7 p.m. On Oct. 30, thatmeans the Breeders Crown finals first post at noon and then the thoroughbredsat sunset.

But if Drazin and Baker can’t — or choose not to — offer fixedodds for any of those race dates, that doesn’t preclude the possibility of thenew wagering arriving sometime before spring.

Simulcast fixed odds betting?

For instance, it could happen during the Breeders’ Cup weekend ofNov. 5-6, when Del Mar Racetrack in California offers some of the bestthoroughbred races on Earth, attracting gamblers from all over to wager.

“We hope to be able to launch fixed odds wagering sometime in thenext several weeks to months,” Drazin said. “Hopefully it is weeks, but itcould be months.”

The one thing that seems certain not to happen is either theMeadowlands Racetrack — which reclaimsits track on Nov. 5 — or Freehold Raceway, which races on Fridayand Saturday afternoons the rest of the year, jumping the gun on Monmouth and offering fixed odds.

“Right now, the harness racing industry is nervous about thecannibalization issue,” Drazin said, referring to horsemen’s worries about howfixed odds — which produce a lower takeout from the pool of wagers — might cutinto profits from the more traditional parimutuel system of betting. “Whetherthey should or shouldn’t be, I’m not going to debate. They decided that theywanted to have Monmouth Park go first with the thoroughbreds, and then basedupon the success or failure they see with that experiment, they would thenreact.

“I think you will see other jurisdictions start to take thesignals and do fixed odds wagering, but right now, most of them want to seeMonmouth Park get up and running and then they want to evaluate that.”

This is familiar ground for Drazin, whose horsemen joinedin a legal battle in support of New Jersey sports betting in 2012 while the other racetracks and the Atlantic City casinos sat out the multi-year court skirmish.

End of a monopoly?

Drazin added that “there is talk about trying to expand themarket” in a few years to allow for competition for 4njbets.com — currently theonly online destination for New Jersey residents to wager legally on horseracing.

TVG currently offers the three racetracks a guaranteed annualrevenue stream for those rights, Drazin said, so a change to the system wouldrequire such a stream that is equal to or better than the current deal. Newoperators would then pay the tracks a fee proportional to their share of themarket.

The plan at Monmouth Park next year is to offer fixed odds only as“win, place or show” bets. Since more exotic bets such as exactas, trifectas,and Pick-6s produce about two-thirds of the betting handle, Drazin said thatmeans only a portion of the remaining one-third of handle could transition tofixed odds should traditional bettors lose their appetite for parimutuel play.

The shift to fixed odds has gained momentum since the explosion of legal, regulatedsports betting operators in nearly half the U.S. states once the Supreme Courtopened the door in May 2018 for states to allow sports wagering.

Sports bettors skew much younger demographically, and Drazin notedthat they already have become accustomed to the fact that they know at the timeof their bet exactly what odds or point spread they are getting.

While the lines move as often in favor of a horse racing bettor asagainst them, Drazin said he regularly hears complaints from novice bettors whoare suspicious that, for example, the horse they bet at 3-1 20 minutes beforethe race suddenly is 2-1 a few minutes later — and even-money just after therace has begun.

Fixed odds solves that concern, eliminating a potential obstacleto gaining a new audience — and generation — of gamblers.

Drazin added that fixed odds is a new wrinkle that can helpracetracks become more competitive in bids to attract the gamblingentertainment dollar.

“It’s kind of like an ice cream store: If all you’re selling isvanilla and chocolate, and everybody else has 20 or 30 other flavors, they’regoing to go there,” Drazin said. “So you need to compete on a level that’sgoing to attract the generations as they come in.”