A summer like no other at Saratoga

NYRA Bets gift cards a hit, Tiz the Law ice cream to debut

Aug. 29, 2020

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Some of the finest thoroughbreds have raced around the Saratoga Race Course this summer, mainly under warm, sunny skies, but in front of largely empty stands.

Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, racing fans have resorted to cable TV and the NYRA Bets app to watch the races. And while New York Racing Association officials would much prefer to have people in the stands, they’ve managed to minimize the loss of on-site revenues.

One of the largest successes has been NYRA Bets, its betting app that was introduced in 2016. A promotion with Stewart’s Shops has also been a big boost.

This summer, NYRA and Stewart’s Shops teamed up to offer NYRA Bets gift cards, expecting to sell about 2,500 of the cards, which are loaded with $50 in betting funds that recipients can deposit into their NYRA Bets account to wager on races throughout the country. As of Friday, nearly 10,000 cards had been sold, more than triple NYRA’s expectations, said Stewart’s Shops President and CEO Gary Dake.

“We have seen multi-card transactions,” said Dake, who added that regulations prohibit purchases by credit card. Instead, purchases must be in cash. “How often do you see people spending $300 cash on anything? One person spent $1,000. It could be somebody who’s giving them out, (such as) restaurants hosting watch parties.”

Watch parties have become a popular alternative in Saratoga Springs to actually being at the race course. While social distancing limits how many people can attend such an event, once there you’re with other fans, cheering on their choices to win. And typically, you’re outside.

NYRA Bets is one of a number of advance-deposit wagering, or ADW, platforms that give fans a way to bet on races nationwide. NYRA seeks to encourage fans to use its platform, because the value it receives from each NYRA Bets wager is about three times as valuable to it as the ones made on other platforms.

It’s the second fastest growing platform in the sport, NYRA President and CEO David O’Rourke told the state Franchise Oversight Board last week, although it’s from a relatively smaller base than TVG, the largest online platform.

“We want to encourage people to bet with NYRA Bets,” said Tony Allevato, NYRA’s chief revenue officer and president of NYRA Bets. The strong gift card sales, he added, “show the power of the Saratoga and NYRA brands” in the region.

Stewart’s and NYRA previously teamed up to sell season passes to Saratoga Race Course. But with the pandemic, that wasn’t possible this year.

And NYRA has felt the financial impact of the coronavirus, posting a $20.1 million operating loss in the year to date, officials told the Franchise Oversight Board last week.

Even before the gift cards, NYRA was moving into televising racing activity on Fox and MSG. That move has served it well during the pandemic, when the stands at Saratoga are empty. Fans continue to watch the programming on TV and the NYRA Bets platform enables them to participate almost as if they were at the track.

For this year’s Runhappy Travers, which was run three weeks ago, Allevato said just under 1.3 million viewers tuned in. In a normal meet, the Travers would have been run this weekend. Instead, NYRA officials are hoping to sell more NYRA Bets gift cards as the Kentucky Derby, normally run in May, will be run next Saturday, Sept. 5, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

The Preakness Stakes, which would have been run on May 16, instead will be run on Oct. 3. With the Belmont Stakes, which was run June 20, they make up the Triple Crown races.