Wagering a Battle Over Derby Bets

The horses are groomed, the hats are ready to wear, and the mint has been crushed for the juleps. But the bets, at least in some places, are off.

One year ago today, Churchill Downs Incorporated, the parent company of the racetrack that's home of the Kentucky Derby, opened an online, off-track betting site called TwinSpires.com. The site is still up and running today, but account holders will not be able use it to place bets on their favored horses in tomorrow's race.

The horse racing market is struggling mightily, and that's only making its participants more desperate for a bigger slice of the shrinking pie.

The latest battle is over the $15 billion in wagers placed annually on horse races. When a wager is placed at a track, the racetrack splits the revenue evenly with the purses, or prizes, awarded to the owners of the winning horses.

In off-track betting, however, the bulk of the revenue goes to the wagering companies, which pays for access to the races. A small percentage goes to the tracks and horsemen. And it's this not-so little kitty that's at the center of dispute.

Not surprisingly, the horse owners would like a bigger share of the bets to go to the purses. In order to make their point known, several horsemen's associations, including those in Florida and even Churchill Downs' home state of Kentucky, have exercised their legal right to block racing signals from being sent to betting companies like TwinSpires.com.

Late last month, Churchill Downs filed a lawsuit against the Thoroughbred Horsemen's Group and the Florida Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.

But any hopes of reaching some kind of agreement in time for the big race tomorrow have been dashed.

A statement on the TwinSpires.com site today breaks the bad news to its bettors:

"Although discussions continue between Churchill Downs Incorportaed officials and the Kentucky Horsemen, there has been no agreement as of 11AM EST Friday, May 2nd. For this reason, we must regretfully advise our players to make other arrangements for placing bets on the undercard races at Churchill Downs this Friday, May 2nd and this Saturday, May 3rd."

Churchill Downs president Robert Evans told the Washington Post earlier this week that sharing more wagering revenue with horsemen is virtually impossible. If they forked over the one-third of revenues that the owners are demanding, Evans said, "[t]hat just makes the whole business go unprofitable."

For the true horseracing gamblers out there, perhaps it's time to start working on getting a ticket to the Derby for next year.

by Megan Barnett

Photograph by Jeff Gentner/PhotoShelter