Dollars & Sense: New Approach, Strong Belmont Wagering

The slight increase in total handle for the five-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival when compared with 2025 suggests a modest gain, but a deeper dive into the numbers suggests significant gains for the New York Racing Association, purses, and in interest from everyday players. This Belmont Stakes (G1) marked the first running for the event after NYRA put in new guardrails for so-called computer-robotic wagering players. Those new restrictions were not embraced by CAW players, who reduced their play nearly 45% during this year's racing festival meeting compared with last year. CAW handle during the June 3-7 meeting was just $22,109,626, well down from last year's five-day festival that saw $39,989,964 in CAW handle. Despite that reduction in CAW play of nearly $17.9 million in handle, retail players made up for the difference as handle increased more than $2.1 million to $199,913,503 for the short meet. Retail players, who essentially are all players not in the CAW category, increased their wagering at the 2026 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival by just more than $20 million to provide the bump in total handle. Their handle was up 12.7% to $177,803,877. CAW refers to betting from players who rely on computer algorithms to scan wagering pools and find value relative to any handicapping opinion. They typically are large-volume players who receive large rebates on their wagers based on that significant handle. They also typically have the advantage of being the final players in the pools, as their computers allow for hundreds or thousands of wagers to be placed through multiple pools just before they are closed. The approach has been successful for CAW over the past couple of decades as this play now accounts for billions of dollars in the pari-mutuel pools on United States races. Despite that increased CAW play, overall handle on U.S. races from 2000-2025 declined 23% to just over $11 billion last year. With CAW players increasing their handle over that time, and becoming a larger percentage of those overall declining pools, tracks have seen wild odds swings just before the gates open as money pours into pools. This has resulted in late odds changes, specifically in the win pool, that often are not reported on the video feed until after the race has started as the system catches up to the last-second wagers. It's a trend that has been unpopular with retail players, who can no longer count on the odds they're seeing a minute before post as being a close-to-accurate reflection of potential wagering value. In February, NYRA attempted to address this concern by putting new guardrails in place for CAW players. Some history: For the past several years, NYRA has attempted to address the issue of late odds changes. In July 2021, NYRA became the first racing organization in the United States to establish a timing restriction for CAW activity, prohibiting such wagering in its win pools when the countdown to post reached "2 MTP." (The pari-mutuel system allows NYRA and other racing associations to monitor and regulate handle from CAW operations.) NYRA added more guardrails in February. The new standards put in place require CAW activity in all other NYRA pools to cease at "1 MTP," or one minute to post. The "2 MTP" standard remains in place for the win pool. NYRA president and CEO David O'Rourke said in late May that the changes have reduced late volatility of odds changes. "This is all about the player; the customer experience over the course of specifically the last year, but even the last few years," O'Rourke said. "We've been hearing frustration … primarily with late odds movement." While the changes are a long-term play to bring more balance to the pari-mutuel game for retail players, the handle results on an important wagering week for NYRA certainly should provide some amount of confidence going forward. Granted, it may be more difficult to match this success without a Triple Crown race in the mix, but, on the other hand, perhaps the everyday players who had a good experience at this meet return more often. Keep in mind that while every agreement between tracks and CAW players is different, in general, it's fair to say that on a per-dollar basis, CAW handle does not generate as much revenue for tracks and purses as retail handle. This is because CAW players, in general, receive the largest rebates on their wagers. Because of this, NYRA could even have finished down in total handle, but up in revenue as retail play generates more for the track and purses. But as it turned out, NYRA actually finished up slightly in total handle and up nearly 13% in retail handle. Beyond that, the handle numbers from Belmont week suggest more horseplayers were engaged with the event as, in general, it takes more retail players to match the handle of a few CAW players. That also marks a success. Bringing more balance between CAW and retail players to pari-mutuel play has been a popular topic at racing conferences, committees, and workshops in recent years. Those experts have noted the growing percentage of CAW handle in pools along with the overall decrease in handle. For NYRA to move an idea out of racing's conference discussions to reality and actually see some degree of success in the real world—even if it's for a week—might provide some confidence for other tracks to try similar ideas.