Sunday, April 12, 2020
| Track Code | Track Name | Entry | Scratch | 1st Post ET | 1st Post Local | Time Zone | Stakes Race(s) | Stakes Grade | T.V. Indicator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SA | SANTA ANITA PARK | 72 | 48 | 3:00 PM | 12:00 PM | PDT | |||
| SUN | SUNLAND PARK | 168 | 24 | 2:30 PM | 12:30 PM | MDT | Mt. Cristo Rey H. | ||
| TAM | TAMPA BAY DOWNS | 72 | 0 | 12:35 PM | 12:35 PM |
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Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
The deal between popular sports-media publisher Barstool Sports Inc. and a casino operator is the latest sign of the seismic change under way in sports betting since the Supreme Court moved two years ago to legalize it widely.
U.S. casino operators, fantasy apps and betting brands from Europe and Australia are in a race for American customers after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 cleared the way for states outside Nevada to establish sports wagering. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have legalized it; some limit betting to casinos while others allow online wagering, including on mobile phones.
Penn National Gaming Inc.PENN 6.37% said Wednesday it would take a 36% stake in closely held Barstool Sports, which produces blog posts, podcasts, social media and live events. In exchange for $163 million—$135 million in cash and $28 million in nonvoting convertible preferred stock—Penn National will get exclusive rights to use the Barstool brand in its sports-betting products in a deal valuing Barstool Sports at $450 million.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, gamblers in the U.S. have placed more than $17 billion in legal sports wagers, generating $1.2 billion in revenue for sports books, according to the most recent numbers from the American Gaming Association. Online betting has proved to be the most profitable; In New Jersey, about 84% of $4.58 billion in sports wagers last year were placed online, according to state figures.
Investors and executives have taken notice. Penn National stock soared on the news, reported earlier Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal. It rose roughly 11% to give the company a market value of about $3.4 billion.
Penn National and Barstool aren’t the only companies jockeying for position through deal making. FanDuel Inc. and DraftKings Inc. have dominated online sports-betting in New Jersey, building on a customer base of fantasy-sports fans. FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment PLC last year agreed to buy PokerStars owner Stars Group Inc. to create a major online poker and sports-betting company. In December, DraftKings reached an agreement to take the company public through a merger with Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp. and gambling-technology firm SB Tech Malta Ltd.
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Penn National, based in Wyomissing, Pa., is aiming to convert some of Barstool Sports’ audience of roughly 66 million into customers of its casinos and an online sports-betting app it is developing. It would do so through marketing on Barstool Sports outlets and live events in Penn National casinos, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Barstool deal joins an operator of 41 gambling properties in 19 states with a viral sports-and-lifestyle brand that is focused on young men and offers satirical—and sometimes controversial—content.
Dave Portnoy founded Barstool Sports in 2003 as a gambling newspaper in Boston. It later moved online.
Barstool Sports and Mr. Portnoy have developed a cultlike following for their ribald and occasionally caustic approach to sports commentary. Mr. Portnoy frequently lashes out at his rivals on social media, targeting writers at sports-media site Deadspin, the Ringer founder Bill Simmons and even employees of Barstool Sports who might attempt to unionize.
The Chernin Group, led by longtime media executive Peter Chernin, has owned a majority stake in Barstool Sports since 2016. The Chernin Group is to keep 36% ownership as part of the deal while key Barstool employees—including Mr. Portnoy, who now serves as president, and Chief Executive Erika Nardini—would hold a collective 28% stake.
In three years, Penn National will increase its stake to around 50% for a payment of $62 million. Penn National and Barstool have options that would increase the casino company’s stake to control or full ownership.
Penn National Chief Executive Jay Snowden said his company’s bricks-and-mortar casino portfolio and older customer base will be complemented by Barstool Sports’ younger digital following as it pursues the target sports-betting audience of 21- to 45-year-olds. “We were missing what Barstool had, and we have what Barstool didn’t have,” Mr. Snowden said in an interview.
Mr. Portnoy posted to Twitter a video announcing the deal, standing in front of a microphone propped up by a water cooler with an animated moonscape in the background. He urged his audience, known as “Stoolies,” to buy Penn National stock. The video ended with a three-minute legal disclaimer distancing the companies from Mr. Portnoy’s opinion.
In an interview, Mr. Portnoy said Barstool Sports will continue to be “unique, funny, irreverent” while being more careful to stay within the boundaries required by gambling regulators.
Sports-betting companies in the U.S. are focused now on the expensive task of acquiring and retaining a customer base and Barstool Sports brings a devoted audience to the deal, Ms. Nardini said. “We sell advertising. We sell T-shirts. We have a vodka business,” she said. “We are able to convert people, to go places, do things, engage with us, buy and stay loyal.”
The first retail Barstool-branded sports book will open in Penn National’s Greektown Casino in Detroit during the March Madness basketball tournament. A Barstool-branded sports-betting app will launch in August.
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