California handle

California's purse and handle numbers are in, and after the pandemic-stricken figures of last year, there's plenty of reason for encouragement. A 13% increase in California races over 2020 translated into a 17% increase in all source handle and a 19% increase in purse generation. "Handle is up everywhere, including Southern California, which generated really nice purses for us in 2021," said Gary Fenton, chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC). "It's created this momentum for us," Fenton said, pointing to the purse enhancements offered by Santa Anita and...

After a pandemic-stricken year in which ADW revenues hammered California industry coffers, the first month of 2021 brought with it a flurry of budgetary and purse account developments in response. First came the announcement from the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) that they had reached an agreement with TVG, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, The Stronach Group's 1/ST Racing, and NYRA to inject some $15 million into the purse fund over the course of two years. In response, a subsidiary of the gaming corporation Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI) filed a...

Recently, TDN published a data set illustrating how the racing industry in California has undergone a dramatic shapeshift, both before and during the pandemic. New betting patterns have constituted a quarter-billion-dollar boon for the advance deposit wagering (ADW) industry at the expense of the California horsemen's purses. In a nutshell, as compared to a comparable period in 2018, the number of races this year has declined 30%. Although the overall handle has declined 18.8%, purses have dropped more than 26%. To discuss these findings, we spoke with Thoroughbred Owners of...