Category
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SportsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - Not everybody travels across the country
00:05 to go to facilities where horses race.
00:08 People may not be familiar that when you bet on horse racing
00:12 you get a specific odds and those odds can change
00:15 based on the amount of people that are betting on the horse
00:17 and the amount of money that's in the pool.
00:19 And so essentially what New York is discussing
00:22 is having fixed price odds on horse racing.
00:26 And I want you to give me your best update
00:28 as to if you think that's going to happen.
00:31 And certainly I think people probably watching
00:33 who are familiar, Jim, are asking why this is going to happen.
00:36 - Yeah, so a couple of interesting pieces to this.
00:41 And I think after having some conversations
00:44 with folks in New York,
00:46 that calling it fixed odds is not necessarily misleading
00:51 but not exactly a great representation of what it is exactly.
00:57 And Craig, we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago
01:00 once this bill in New York was filed
01:03 to legalize fixed odds wagering.
01:06 And essentially what that means is that the sports books,
01:10 the online sports books like the FanDuels
01:12 and DraftKings of the world in New York
01:14 would be able to offer horse racing markets.
01:18 And because of the way the sports betting law
01:21 is written in New York,
01:22 those markets would need to be fixed odds markets
01:27 like any of your other traditional sports bets are.
01:30 So what this effectively would do
01:33 would allow online sports books
01:36 to offer horse racing markets,
01:38 whether it be, you know, win play show betting,
01:41 Kentucky Derby, future bets that we see in Las Vegas
01:46 and other parts of the country
01:51 and, you know, other potential prop bets
01:54 around horse racing.
01:56 And I spoke to some representatives
01:58 at the New York Racing Association
02:00 and they're all for this.
02:02 They're trying to tap into the, you know,
02:05 multi-billion dollar market that is New York sports betting.
02:09 And they feel like this would be a fantastic opportunity
02:13 to kind of hop on board and ride that wave
02:16 that New York sports betting has been on
02:18 for the last two years.
02:21 What this also would do would allow sports betting kiosks
02:25 to be placed at professional sports stadiums and arenas
02:29 and racetracks as well in New York.
02:33 And NYRA, the New York Racing Association,
02:35 did its own sort of financial analysis around this bill
02:40 and their determination,
02:42 they told me that this would boost
02:45 overall sports betting handle in New York State
02:49 by a billion dollars a year
02:51 and it would increase sports book revenue by 5%,
02:55 which ultimately would mean about 25 million extra dollars
03:00 in tax revenue for New York State.
03:03 And, you know, New York State is running into
03:06 a couple of fiscal issues over the next couple of years,
03:08 which is why they're also considering
03:10 iGaming legislation there,
03:13 which projections put that at about a billion dollars
03:16 in tax revenue a year.
03:17 So, you know, with the fixed odds horse racing,
03:21 you know, I think it's more so New York racing itself
03:26 trying to kind of capture some sports betting eyeballs,
03:30 some sports betting dollars,
03:32 and see how that works for the industry
03:37 with this fixed odds bill.
03:40 Speaking to some lawmakers and sponsors of the bill,
03:43 they told me they're optimistic
03:46 and we'll kind of see where it goes.
03:49 But there has been in recent years
03:51 a fair bit of support for New York horse racing
03:56 in the state legislature.
03:57 So, you know, we still got a couple of months
03:59 to see how this all shakes out.
04:01 I know that the conversations are just starting
04:04 and will be ongoing over the next several weeks and months.
04:08 So we'll keep tabs on it and see where things stand here
04:13 as we get into the spring.
04:15 (upbeat music)
04:18 (bells chiming)