NYRA begins penny breakage on closing card

Beginning with Monday’s closing-day card at Saratoga, the New York Racing Association will implement penny breakage, a horseplayer-friendly measure that will result in all wagers placed on NYRA races being paid to the penny instead of the tiered breakage model that was previously in place.

The law permitting this was passed in the New York State budget signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May, with an effective date of Sept. 1.

Historically, breakage has been most noticeable on wagers with smaller payoffs, such as win, place, and show bets. While a winning bet might have a calculated payout of, for example, $5.48, the bettor would only receive $5.40, with the $0.08 in breakage retained by the state or the track. Beginning Monday, the bettor will receive the calculated amount to the penny for bets placed on NYRA’s races.

While most jurisdictions use 10-cent breakage for rounding, New York adopted a tiered structure in the mid-1990s that used five-cent breakage on lower payouts with higher breakage rates for higher payouts. That tiered structure was designed to be both beneficial to bettors and revenue-neutral to the parties that received shares of breakage. New York joins Kentucky and Washington as the only racing jurisdictions in the country to eliminate breakage on races hosted within their state.

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