First and most importantly Kenwood Racing would like to congratulate Monmouth Park and Dennis Drazin, in particular, on the successful challenge to PASPA and the resulting decision by the Supreme Court on sports betting. 

Dennis held a press conference at Monmouth Park in the William Hill Sports Bar today following the historic Supreme Court decision.  Attending the conference representing Kenwood Racing were Kenwood’s Founder and Co-managing partner Robb Levinsky and Kenwood’s President and Co-managing partner Jack Czajkowski.

As you may know Monmouth Park and Dennis in particular were the main drivers of the effort to overturn Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 otherwise known as PASPA (the law restricting sports betting to only a select few locations). 

Dennis began the press conference acknowledging the support of everyone involved particularly the NJ Horsemen, former NJ State Senator Lesniak, former Governor Christie, Governor Murphy and others.  He followed up by stating the horse industry in NJ involves 13,000 jobs and protects over 176,000 acres of farmland.

The illegal sports betting business is estimated at $400 billion/year.  Legalizing the activity will protect consumers by bringing the activity into a regulated environment.

How the NJ legislation will actually look is still under discussion in the NJ legislature, but that being said, Dennis is hopeful of having the Monmouth/William Hill Sports Book up and running in approximately 2 weeks, potentially sooner for some unique future bets.  Since Lesniak. Christie and other politicians all want to be the first to bet, that should make for an interesting first day!

Of course, either Governor Murphy or the NJ state legislature could request that Monmouth wait until new legislation is enacted and Dennis stated Monmouth would abide by any request by the Governor, so that could delay things.

Dennis stated that the intent of any money gained from sports betting would be to increase both racing purses and the number of days of racing.  An ideal long term goal would be for thoroughbreds to race in NJ from April through December, taking Jan-March off.  April through September would be at Monmouth and October through the beginning of December at the Meadowlands, with dirt racing included at the Meadowlands.

As for Monmouth Park itself, this decision opens up the probability of construction of the long delayed concert venue and the long term plan to turn Monmouth Park into a full entertainment venue generating non-gaming revenue to compliment the racing and gaming.

Finally Dennis mentioned the idea of a synergy between sports betting and racing, possibly having some form of combination bets including picking the winners of certain races with picking the winners of sporting events.  Say a “$2 exacta of #2 in the third race and the Yankees winning today”!

So all in all, the possibilities are now endless and things are looking very bright for the first time in a long time for NJ racing.  Kenwood Racing salutes Dennis Drazin on his tireless work in making this a reality and looks to support Monmouth Park in any way we can help!