By Kenny Walter
Staff Writer
OCEANPORT- With expenses rising, Monmouth Park officials have offered an initial purse structure plan that is more than $1 million less than the previous year.
Dennis Drazin, adviser to the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, said the current plan is to decrease many of the purses this upcoming season, which opens May 14, due to an escalated lease and loan payment.
However, it is possible for park officials to adjust and increase the purses during the season.
“You start with trying to anticipate what the purse structure should be in order to try to maintain the competitive edge with other states, but based on business, you adjust those disbursements,” Drazin said.
“What we’ve come out and we’ve said is there are certain purses that are going to be cut. It is all contingent on business.”
The schedule for the 2016 stakes will have 16 graded events, worth $2.9 million.
An example of how track officials may adjust purses throughout the season is last year’s annual Haskell Invitational. Drazin said the race has been a $1 million stakes race and will continue so this year,.
But last year to attract the triple crown winner American Pharoah, the race was increased to $1.75 million. American Pharoah won the race last August in front of a crowd 60,983, the largest ever at Monmouth Park.
Drazin reported that one of the reasons for the decreased purses is that the track’s expenses have increased.
“The total all-in package includes $1.2 million we pay for loans, the lease payment of $250,000, $1.8 million we pay for taxes in Oceanport and a percentage of some of our revenue sources we give the state for off-track wagering,” he said.
Drazin said the loan increases from $500,000 payment to $1.2 million this year as the track continues to pay back a $9 million loan and the lease escalates from $1 for the first five years to $250,000.
Drazin said one of the new amenities at the track this year will be the Blue Grotto restaurant, which is located next to the miniature gold course.
According to Drazin, the track will also offer two new betting styles this year.
He said for the first time betters will be offered exchange wagering, where they can get fixed odds on horses, as well as in-race betting where you can bet on a horse from the starting gate to the finish line.
The track also has been offering daily fantasy sports for the last few months that can be accessed at www.mpscoreattheshore.com.
Drazin and Monmouth Park officials and state officials have been embroiled in a fight to legalize sports betting in recent years in an effort to increase revenues.
The state argued for the legalization of sports betting in February in Philadelphia in front of 12 Third Circuit Court of Appeals judges, who have not yet ruled on the case.
The defendants are seeking to overturn an August decision in which two of three Third Circuit Court of Appeals judges ruled that New Jersey’s 2014 law deregulating sports wagering violates federal law. The case pits the defendants — who include the New Jersey Racing Commission, the thoroughbred horsemen and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority — against the four major professional sports leagues, Major League Baseball (MLB), National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL), and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
Just days after Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law in 2014 allowing sports wagering, the four major pro sports leagues, MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL, and the NCAA, filed suit to stop Monmouth Park from accepting wagers on sporting events. On Nov. 21, 2014, a federal judge upheld the federal ban on sports wagering, leading to the state’s appeal to the Third Circuit.
The Third Circuit also shot down a 2012 law legalizing sports betting with both rulings claiming the laws violated the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which bars sports betting in all but four states.
Monmouth Park’s development plans — including an indoor water park, hotel and other amenities — are tied to the additional revenues projected from sports betting.
Drazin has estimated that $1 billion would be wagered each year at Monmouth Park if sports betting were legalized. That could net $75 million in annual revenue for the racetrack, which is Oceanport’s largest taxpayer.
The federal government banned sports betting in 1992, and states were given a window of one year to legalize it. Only Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon chose to do so.
Of the four states currently exempt, only Nevada has large-scale sports betting, while the other three states currently have limited wagering.
