Nevada casinos and bet-processor avert parimutuel shutdown

Nevada’s casinos and the provider of bet-processing services for the casino’s racebooks have reached an agreement on a short-term extension of a contract, averting a potential shutdown of parimutuel betting on one of the bigger racing weekends of the year, according to officials involved in the negotiations.

The agreement to extend the existing contract for 30 days was reached late on Thursday night between the Nevada Pari-Mutuel Association, which represents the racebooks, and Las Vegas Dissemination Company, which provides simulcast signals and bet-processing services to the racebooks. If a new agreement or extension had not been in place by the end of business on Friday, the racebooks would have been unable to offer pari-mutuel betting on racing signals beginning on Saturday, the day of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Racecourse in New York.

“We still have some things to work out, but we have the 30-day extension in place, and we think we can get it all worked out,” said Patty Jones, the executive director of the NPMA, on Friday morning.

Jones declined to comment on the outstanding issues, but she said that the two sides have reached agreement on the major provisions of a new contract.

The two sides appeared before the Nevada Gaming Control Board on Thursday. The board indicated during the meeting that it would approve the extension in order to avert a shutdown.

The racebooks had said that they would offer booked bets on simulcast signals starting Saturday if the dispute was not resolved.