Meadowlands Revenue in Decline

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

It is well known that The Meadowlands has for many years been the undisputed leader among Standardbred tracks in both quality of product and handle on the races, averaging just over $3 million per card again in 2024.

Unfortunately, operating without ancillary revenue from an alternate form of gaming and left to depend on money bet on the races as the main stream of revenue doesn’t pay the bills, jeopardizing the industry leader’s future.

The revenue being generated by the sources available can not sustain purses at the current level, nor does it cover the cost of operations. That problem is compounded by the fact that handle on horse racing and in turn, the revenue derived from it, declines every year.

Handle on Standardbred racing in 2024 was down more than 7% from 2023 levels (USTA figures), while Equibase figures show Thoroughbred racing handle declining by 3.35% year over year and a shocking 14% in December.

Despite the best efforts of Meadowlands management to stem the tide by offering a popular betting menu on full and competitive fields, guaranteed pools to enhance the most popular of those, the grandest stakes program in North America and a plethora of both racing and non-racing promotions, the declines in revenue continue and are taking their toll.

Those financial woes are complicated by the proliferation of sport betting options since FanDuel at The Meadowlands was the first to implement it in 2017. Sports betting took a 30% hit when neighboring New York came online in 2022, and continues to face greater competition every year.

While the sports betting is indeed a separate entity from Meadowlands Racing, the agreement with the SBOA of NJ dictates that a percentage of the revenue be used for purses.

In 2024, The Meadowlands added $2.5 million in sports betting revenue directly to the purse account and another $11.5 million of that revenue was used to cover the losses accumulated operating the racetrack for the year.

To educate those involved in racing and illuminate the reality of racetrack operations, you’ll find below the numbers to support the issues mentioned above:

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Year-end summaries for Pari-Mutuel and FanDuel handle at The Meadowlands and Bayonne OTW for 2024:

2024 combined pari-mutuel handle is down compared to 2023 by $18.8M or 5%. 2024 had the same number of dates as 2023 and included the Breeders Crown Series in October. Live is down $930K (8%), Import is down $8.5M (10%) and Export is down $9.4M (4%) for the year.

For the last four months, combined pari-mutuel handle is down $4.75M or 5%, with live being down $54K (2%), Import down $3.3M (12%) and Export down $1.4M (2%).

Pari-mutuel – $1.3M net loss from racing revenues less statutory and purse related expenses.

Purse – $789K loss to the purses of Meadowlands and Monmouth combined.

For FanDuel sports betting the 2024, combined handle is down $206M (4%) from 2023. This consists of $33.5M (12%) in retail and down $172.5M (4%) in on-line.

Broken out are figures September through December 2024, football season. Historically, since sports betting became legal, wagering on football results in a redistribution of wagering dollars from racing to sports but has been a boon for FanDuel. (Please note, December is still being audited and has not been released publicly by FD at this time.)

At FanDuel over the last 4 months, combined handle is down from September through December 2023 $462M (20%) and consists of retail being down $6.7M (7%) and on-line being down $455M (21%).

The Meadowlands had two other online skins that stopped operating during 2024. Pointsbet was acquired by Fanatics and stopped operating its online platform at the Meadowlands in May 2024 and Superbook stopped operations in July 2024. Both of these significantly impacted the cash flow of Meadowlands negatively compared to 2023.

Bayonne Off Track Wagering outlet is down year over year $5.1M (19%) in handle for the year and down $1.2M (15%) for September through December.

Bayonne’s impact is about a $500K negative impact for year over year.

Meadowlands President Jeff Gural spoke to the problem, “Even though we spent over $100 million to build a beautiful new facility which caters to owners, it has not resulted in drawing people, even horse people, to come to the track.

“The reality is that for us to continue to conduct a 90-day harness racing meet, The Meadowlands, like all the other harness tracks in the Northeast, needs the revenue a casino generates to help fund purses and operating costs.

“Every year our main competitor, Yonkers, receives $50 Million for purses while Pocono and Harrah’s Philly each get around $30 Million in ancillary revenue from gaming. Without casino revenue, we receive only a $6 Million grant from the state and unlike the other tracks, we share our sports betting revenue with the horsemen.

“The truth is harness racing only exists in NJ because we have good lobbyists and provide thousands of jobs and green space, but our customers are continuing to die off which weakens our case each year.

”Making it worse, unlike here at the Meadowlands the owners at all of the other racetracks are casino companies who would prefer to see horse racing disappear.”