from the USTA Communications Department

Columbus, OH — According to a Courthouse News Service report, New York’s off-track betting corporations have filed a petition seeking to reduce payments harness tracks receive to protect their night racing revenue against simulcast competition, now that many races are held in the afternoon.

In an Article 78 petition in Schenectady County Court, the OTBs ask that the “maintenance of effort” payment be ended for the days the harness tracks conduct races outside the protected nighttime hours, which begin at 6 p.m.

Their complaint against the New York State Racing and Wagering Board and six harness tracks claims that despite a letter from the OTBs pointing out that maintenance of effort payments “are not due to regional harness tracks…for those days that they conducted races outside of the protected nighttime hours,” the subsidies were kept in place and the board “gave no rationale or explanation for its determination in this regard.”

Six harness track operators were named as respondents. Five of the tracks — Saratoga Raceway, Buffalo Raceway, Tioga Downs, Vernon Downs and Monticello Raceway — “held substantial numbers of their races outside the protected nighttime hours,” according to the complaint. The sixth respondent operates Yonkers Raceway.

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