NYRA sets date for implementation of further computer-assisted wagering restrictions
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The New York Racing Association on Feb. 5 will implement a previously announced policy to throttle down the wagering activity from computer-assisted wagering teams as of one minute to post in nearly all of its parimutuel pools, the association announced on Friday.
Staring Feb. 5, all wagers made into the pools will be restricted to six bets per second, an internal threshold among many major racetracks of what constitutes the number of bets any sophisticated horseplayer can batch into the pools using generally available tools. Most professional computer-assisted wagering programs are able to send hundreds of bets per second into the pools due to proprietary software linked to the parimutuel system.
NYRA announced the policy in early December but had not set a date for when it would go into effect. A previous policy throttling down CAW play in the win pool at two minutes to post will remain in place, as will NYRA’s two “retail only” multi-race bets, the late pick five and daily pick six.
CAW play in parimutuel pools has been targeted for criticism by everyday horseplayers since the programs exploded onto the U.S. racing scene in the early 2000s. The programs use algorithms to analyze real-time betting data to identify inefficiencies in the pools, and those calculations are used to send thousands of bets into multiple pools just prior to races going off, often leading to dramatic late odds changes in those pools visible to the public.
“This policy reflects the importance of modernizing parimutuel wagering to address the technology-driven evolution of high-speed wagering,” said David O’Rourke, NYRA’s chief executive officer, in a release. “Reducing odds volatility will increase pricing transparency and improve the wagering experience for horseplayers in New York and across the country.”
NYRA is gambling that CAW play on its own product will not migrate considerably to other racetracks, costing the company betting revenue. Although the exact percentage is not known, CAW play at many major racetracks generally accounts for anywhere between 15 to 30 percent of the pools, according to racing officials.
The CAW programs are most efficient when they can assess the impact of their own bets on the potential payouts. To do that, they need to bet as late as possible into the pools, which is why nearly all of them do not send wagers into the pools until the horses are being loaded into the gate.
NYRA was the first racing company to place restrictions on CAW play, implementing the win-pool cutoff in 2021. Del Mar implemented a two-minute cutoff in its own win pools several weeks into its 2025 summer meet after a string of late odds changes over a single weekend.
O’Rourke said in December when announcing the policy at the Global Symposium on Racing that the restrictions would put “guardrails” on CAW play and that he did not expect NYRA to remove the restrictions over the long-term. He did say, however, that NYRA would conduct sophisticated analyses of the impact of the restrictions that could lead to tweaks.
O’Rourke also said in December that NYRA had started work on a project that would give more horseplayers access to raw betting data, so that they could use tools to perform analyses similar to those performed by the CAW programs. He said at the time that the work could take several months.
Pat McKenna, a spokesperson for NYRA, said on Friday that work continues on the “data hub” but that NYRA is not yet ready to announce when it might be available to players.
NYRA is also working on making new handicapping tools available to players, McKenna said.
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