Penny Breakage Coming To New York

[Wandering Eyes]

When lawmakers passed the New York State budget Thursday, the package included a gift for horseplayers. Starting Sept. 1, New York will join Kentucky and Washington as the only racing states to break payoffs to the penny.

However, the bill allows for nickel breakage on on-track wagers, provided all breakage proceeds are dedicated to aftercare funding. It was not immediately clear which tracks would adopt the penny breakage and which would chose the nickel-breakage package.

Both NYRA and Gov. Kathy Hochul were supportive of the move to penny breakage.

“The adoption of penny breakage in New York State is a win for horseplayers made possible by Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature, who prioritized racing in a variety of important ways in this year's budget. NYRA looks forward to implementing this commonsense breakage reform later this year,” said NRA Vice President, Communications Pat McKenna.

The movement to get tracks to revert to a penny breakage system was headed by at Pat Cummings, who, at the time, was with the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation. Kentucky was the first state to adopt the system. Cummings is now with the National Thoroughbred Alliance, a group founded by owner Mike Repole.

“This is super exciting,” Cummings said. “I give full credit to (NYRA CEO and President) David O'Rourke and his team for coming back around to it when they had the ability to do so. It takes times and every state is different and different political elements are involved. It is not easy. Dave never let it drop and he was on-board from the beginning of the movement, all the way back to 2018 when the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation first went to work on this. David and his team knew when the time was right to be able to get this going again.”

Cummings estimated that the switch to penny breakage will result in an extra $10 million going into the pockets of horseplayers each year. NYRA out-handles Kentucky, where penny breakage has, according to Cummings, meant an extra $7 million a year paid to the bettors.

Sovereignty (Into Mischief) paid, across the board $17.96, $7.50 and $5.58 in the GI Kentucky Derby. Without penny breakage, he would have paid $17.80, $7.40 and $5.40.

“We think that this will mean $10 million more in the pockets of the players and then the effect that has on churn we think can be significant,” Cummings said.

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