California horsemen withdraw OK for TwinSpires to take bets

Thoroughbred horsemen in California have withdrawn their consent for TwinSpires. com to accept bets on races at state racetracks from California customers, citing their dissatisfaction with the company’s compliance with monitoring account wagers made ontrack in the state.

The Thoroughbred Owners of California announced the decision Thursday at a meeting of the California Horse Racing Board at Golden Gate Fields. That would seem to indicate that California customers of TwinSpires, which is owned by Churchill Downs Inc., would be unable to use their accounts to bet on California races unless an agreement between the two parties is worked out.

Greg Avioli, the chief executive of the TOC, said Friday that the organization intended to block TwinSpires from accepting the bets covered by the withdrawal as of Thursday. However, he said, TwinSpires continued to allow its California customers to bet on state races after the permission was withdrawn Thursday, and as a result, it has filed a complaint with the CHRB.

“We notified [TwinSpires] again last night that we had withdrawn our permission, so we have sent a letter to the CHRB,” Avioli said. “We think they have violated state and federal law.”

State and federal racing statutes provide horsemen with the right to approve betting on simulcast wagers.

The dispute centers on a directive issued by the TOC in December requiring accountwagering companies to pinpoint the location of a customer when the customer places a bet, using geolocation technologies on the customer’s smartphone. The directive was designed to trigger higher revenue splits for tracks and horsemen when an account-wagering customer made a bet while physically located on a track’s grounds.

A TOC statement issued Thursday said TwinSpires had not completely complied with the directive despite extensions granted by the TOC through mid-March. The statement also noted that TwinSpires’s major competitors had complied fully with the directive, though those companies also needed extensions to the original timeline.

“The last thing we want to do is inconvenience the customer, which is why we have worked diligently with the [account-wagering] providers and have granted multiple extensions for compliance,” the statement said.

TwinSpires released a statement Thursday night that characterized the dispute as involving a “technical change” requested by the TOC. The statement said that it expected to implement the change within the next “24-48” hours.

TwinSpires refused to comment Friday beyond the released statement, which also said that the company believes it is still in compliance with the TOC’s demands despite the organization’s complaint.

“Bottom line, TwinSpires is complying with our geolocation agreement with TOC, and we expect TOC to comply with their contractual obligations as well,” the statement said.

Avioli said that TwinSpires had used similar language in its response to the TOC about its decision to continue to allow California customers to wager on state races Thursday. However, he said, the company’s justification was “irrelevant” because of the wide latitude granted to horsemen over simulcasting under the federal Interstate Horse Racing Act.

“Whether they believe they are compliant is irrelevant,” Avioli said. “They no longer have permission to take those wagers.”

Many horseplayers prefer to use their wagering accounts to make bets ontrack because it allows them to avoid mutuel lines and to take advantage of account-wagering companies’ handle-based player rewards. However, ontrack bets placed through the windows typically provide more revenue to horsemen than wagers placed through account-wagering companies, leading to disputes between the companies and horsemen about the proper distribution of revenue from the account-wagering bets placed on the track grounds.

Some tracks, such as Keeneland and Gulfstream, have attempted to mitigate the problem by funneling ontrack customers to track-branded mobile apps that have all the same capabilities as accountwagering operations, including a variety of deposit and withdrawal options. Those apps treat wagers as ontrack bets for revenue purposes.