A 5924: Provides for the amount to be paid by off-track betting corporations to regional harness tracks from out-of-state and out-of-country simulcast revenue.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 5924 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN ASSEMBLY February 24, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. WOERNER -- read once and referred to the Commit- tee on Racing and Wagering AN ACT to amend the racing, pari-mutuel wagering and breeding law, in relation to payments by off track betting corporations to regional harness tracks for out-of-state and out-of-country simulcasting reven- ue The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Subdivision 2 of section 1017 of the racing, pari-mutuel 2 wagering and breeding law, as amended by chapter 174 of the laws of 2013 3 and paragraph a as amended by chapter 243 of the laws of 2020, is 4 amended to read as follows: 5 2. [a. Maintenance of effort. Any off-track betting corporation that 6 engages in accepting wagers on the simulcasts of thoroughbred races from 7 out-of-state or out-of-country as permitted under subdivision one of 8 this section shall submit to the commission, for its approval, a sched- 9 ule of payments to be made in any year or portion thereof, that such 10 off-track corporation engages in nighttime thoroughbred simulcasting. In 11 order to be approved by the commission, the payment schedule shall be 12 identical to the actual payments and distributions of such payments to 13 tracks and purses made by such off-track corporation pursuant to the 14 provisions of section one thousand fifteen of this article during the 15 year two thousand two, as derived from out-of-state harness races 16 displayed after 6:00 P.M. If approved by the commission, such scheduled 17 payments shall be made from revenues derived from any simulcasting 18 conducted pursuant to this section and section one thousand fifteen of 19 this article. 20 b. Additional payments.] Payments. During each calendar year, to the 21 extent, and at such time in the event, that aggregate statewide wagering 22 handle after 7:30 P.M. on out-of-state and out-of-country thoroughbred 23 races exceeds one hundred million dollars, each off-track betting corpo- EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD09481-01-5 
 A. 5924 2 1 ration conducting such simulcasting shall pay to its regional harness 2 track or tracks, an amount equal to [two percent] the following percent- 3 age of its proportionate share of such excess handle: for calendar years 4 through two thousand twenty-five, two percent; for calendar year two 5 thousand twenty-six, one and one-half percent; for calendar year two 6 thousand twenty-seven, one percent; and for calendar year two thousand 7 twenty-eight, one-half of one percent. There shall be no further addi- 8 tional payment obligation pursuant to this subdivision for calendar 9 years commencing on or after January first, two thousand twenty-nine. In 10 any region where there are two or more regional harness tracks, such 11 [two percent] payment amount shall be divided between or among the 12 tracks in a proportion equal to the proportion of handle on live harness 13 races conducted at such tracks during the preceding calendar year. Fifty 14 percent of the sum received by each track pursuant to this [paragraph] 15 subdivision shall be used exclusively for increasing purses, stakes and 16 prizes at that regional harness track. For the purpose of determining 17 whether such aggregate statewide handle exceeds one hundred million 18 dollars, all wagering on such thoroughbred races accepted by licensed 19 multi-jurisdictional account wagering providers from customers within 20 New York state shall be excluded. 21 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.