Getting in the money for racing’s last weekend

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (NEWS10) — There’s no denying this year’s season will go down as one of the most unusual in racing history. That goes from being on the track to off, when it comes to the betting aspect.

For Capital Off Track Betting, they’ve seen quite the increase in users as they accommodate local fans.

“We are well over 1,000 new accounts during the pandemic,” Marketing Manager of Capital OTB, Shannon Donovan, said. “Now with Saratoga in our backyard here, it’s been tremendous.”

Even though there were no fans in the stands, there’s plenty online.

“80 percent of the business coming through at this time is all through the internet,” Donovan said. “Even with all of our locations open right now, probably 70 to 80% of the business is still through the internet.”

Going into the season, they were fortunate to have upgrades with their system as they knew the volume increase was going to be so high. While Donovan says its been an interesting dynamic for horse racing, it’s worked out well for the sport.

“Horse racing will never have all the eyes that they’ve had this year on them, and hopefully we’re able to contain that, sustain it going into a new year,” Donovan said.

He also said he expects even more accounts to be made with the Kentucky Derby this weekend, especially as they’re in 16 counties and go all the way down to the Catskills and Green County are and on the border of Syracuse.

He mentioned that, as Saratoga’s own Tiz the Law and “Tizmania” continues, he believes a lot of upstate New York racing fans will still be heavily invested after the Spa City season.