Betting Updates: Horse Racing, North Carolina and Golf Betting
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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
00:02It's rare to have Jim Gazzaleon for weeks and weeks
00:04without talking a little horse racing.
00:07I'm glad we brought that back here on the show today.
00:09I don't know if you guys covered anything Tuesday
00:11with me out here, but we do have a couple of stories
00:14surrounding Churchill Downs in Kentucky
00:17and also Saratoga horse racing as well.
00:19So you'll get your fix with that, those of you tuned in.
00:21But again, we have some other stories to touch on as well.
00:23Jim, welcome back to Newswire.
00:24Thanks for making some time for us today.
00:26How are you?
00:27Yeah, I'm doing good, Craig.
00:28Thanks for having me.
00:30And by the way, legalsportsreport.com
00:31is where you can read all of the stories
00:34that we're gonna discuss here on the show.
00:36Let's start off with North Carolina
00:38as we head toward the final quarter of the year.
00:40How has sports betting's outlook been for them in 2024
00:44and what can we expect in the future?
00:47Yeah, I think one of the more interesting things
00:50when North Carolina launched their sports betting market
00:55earlier this year, for me at least,
00:57was golf and NASCAR.
01:00And back in the springtime, Craig,
01:02we talked pretty heavily about both of those outfits.
01:05So I wanted to kind of check in
01:07and see how the golf betting was going in North Carolina.
01:11And for the Tar Heel State, it's been doing pretty well.
01:16I know the tournament there this weekend
01:19was delayed yesterday.
01:20And I know that that first round
01:21just got underway in North Carolina earlier this morning.
01:24But overall, North Carolina accounts
01:27for about 8% of all golf bets nationwide.
01:31So with a top 20 market overall,
01:35North Carolina in terms of sports betting handle widespread,
01:39that 8% of total golf bets coming from North Carolina
01:44puts it as a top five golf market nationwide.
01:48So certainly over-indexing in golf betting.
01:52Now, overall golf betting,
01:54the PGA Tour told me a couple of weeks ago,
01:56overall golf betting nationwide is up 20%,
01:59which is right in line
02:01with the overall sports betting landscape.
02:04We've seen about 20% year-on-year volume increase.
02:09And a lot of that has to do
02:10with a lot of these larger states,
02:12more popular states coming online in the last year or so.
02:17Massachusetts, Ohio, Kentucky comes to mind.
02:21So when I looked into the numbers,
02:23there are a handful of states
02:24that do break out individual sport-specific statistics,
02:30golf being one of them in a handful of states.
02:32And that looked to be more along the lines
02:35of about a 10% increase.
02:38But overall golf betting is up.
02:41Now, when you look at the entire landscape of sports betting,
02:46I think to kind of gauge success for individual sports,
02:50you wanna see how much of that overall piece
02:54of the pie is growing.
02:56Now, while total volume is up, like I said,
03:00that overall market share for golf isn't necessarily up.
03:05And in fact, in 2022,
03:08golf had 1.43% of overall sports betting in 2024.
03:15So far, it's been 1.35%.
03:18Now, it's worth mentioning that we don't have eyes
03:22in every single state
03:24in terms of specific golf betting figures.
03:27There's four or five, maybe six states that break it out.
03:32But in talking to the PGHOR,
03:34they are really banking on the live betting markets.
03:38We've seen the live betting menu for golf grow substantially
03:43over the last six, eight, 12 months.
03:45So they're really banking on that.
03:47And they did tell me they're not declaring
03:49any sort of victories just yet in North Carolina
03:53four or five months in,
03:54but they are rather pleased with the growth in golf betting,
03:58especially from the Tar Heel State, Craig.
04:00All right, good notes there on North Carolina.
04:02Again, you could read about this column
04:03over at legalsportsreport.com.
04:05All right, this one caught me a little bit by surprise.
04:07Kentucky Downs adding a new sports betting operator.
04:11And Jim, it's a sports betting operator
04:14very popular in Las Vegas.
04:16It's Circa Sportsbook.
04:18And the reason why I guess I find this
04:19a little fascinating, Jim,
04:20is because Superbook, which was exclusive out of Las Vegas,
04:24ended up pulling some of their books,
04:26their sponsorships and partnerships
04:29in different places in the country.
04:30Why has Circa decided to jump into Kentucky?
04:33Yeah, so Circa launched their online sports betting app
04:37in Kentucky about six or so,
04:40a little bit more than that, mid-May.
04:43They started taking bets in Kentucky online.
04:46So this has always really been part of the plan
04:50in opening up a retail bricks-and-mortar sportsbook
04:55in the state.
04:57As you know, Craig, the state allows the online operators
05:01to have agreements with racetracks.
05:04So Circa, they have their online licensing
05:09through Cumberland Run, which is a harness track.
05:12And now they're going to be opening a temporary sportsbook
05:17at Kentucky Downs next week.
05:19And I say it's temporary because I think they're trying
05:23to really capitalize on the start of football season
05:26and just get something up and running.
05:27All the regulatory hurdles have been cleared.
05:30So in speaking with some people there,
05:32they said the timing just worked out
05:34that football season's on the horizon
05:36and they wanna be able to offer this.
05:39What I found interesting is that this is going to be
05:42the closest retail sportsbook to Nashville,
05:46which is a very popular market for Kentucky Downs
05:52and the attached casino there.
05:56So what they're hoping is that they're able to draw
05:59that crowd from Nashville, Tennessee
06:02that is looking for a more traditional style
06:05of watching football and placing a bet on it
06:09and not being tied to their phone for the entire afternoon.
06:14So they do get a lot of business from that Nashville market
06:18and Nashville, Tennessee obviously has mobile sports betting
06:22but there's no casinos in Tennessee.
06:23So this is certainly a draw for them.
06:25And as the horse racing fan that I am,
06:30I wanted to see how this all matched up
06:32with their race dates at Kentucky Downs.
06:34They have a short sort of boutique meet there.
06:38It only lasts seven days, but for them,
06:40two of those days will coincide live racing
06:43with NFL football opening night that Thursday,
06:47September 5th, there's live racing
06:49during the day at Kentucky Downs.
06:50And then all day Sunday, that's September 8th,
06:53week one of NFL, you'll have live racing there
06:58along with that full slate of NFL games.
07:02So that's Circa Sportsbook opening
07:03at Kentucky Downs next week.
07:06And then the more permanent larger build out
07:09is expected sometime next summer.
07:11All right, now let's get a final story from you here, Jim,
07:14before we let you go for the weekend.
07:16Let's hit on Saratoga.
07:18You've got some numbers in from horse racing.
07:20So here we go, Jim, how are things going in upstate New York?
07:24Yeah, I couldn't let you get away
07:25with a couple of weeks in a row
07:26without talking about horse racing.
07:29So we're about halfway through the summer racing season
07:32up here at Saratoga, and it's been raining
07:37seemingly for the last week,
07:39as it has been up and down the entire East Coast really.
07:43And that's really affected the racing up here
07:46in terms of being able to run on the turf,
07:49which usually has larger fields, more handle.
07:53So halfway through the meet, handle last year
07:56compared to this year is relatively flat,
08:00slight increase, really only a couple of thousand dollars
08:04really, and a lot of that has to do with the rain.
08:09It's taken a bunch of races off the turf.
08:12Last weekend was a big weekend, Whitney Day at Saratoga,
08:16and they had two or three marquee turf races.
08:21Two of them got canceled, one got moved to the dirt,
08:23and when that happens, a lot of the horses scratch out
08:25because they don't want to run on the dirt.
08:27So that's affected handle.
08:29Attendance kind of walking around there on the weekends,
08:33like I do, it just seems a lot quieter than in years past,
08:37and speaking with some folks at NARA,
08:39it seems like the Belmont Stakes weekend
08:42up here in early June really kind of took a lot
08:46of the excitement out of the summer.
08:48Perhaps some people coming into town
08:50for their annual trip to Saratoga,
08:53they did that back in June for the Belmont
08:55rather than this summer.
08:57Jim, great stuff.
08:58As always, have a great weekend,
09:00and we'll catch up with you again next week on Newswire.
09:03Thanks, Greg.