The New York Racing Association Inc. (NYRA) announced today that it has notified six additional simulcast outlets that it is terminating their simulcast contracts, effective January 31, 2005. Today's action by NYRA is a follow-up to a similar announcement by NYRA last week, on January 18th, wherein NYRA announced that it was terminating its simulcast contracts with four outlets connected to the federal government's recent indictments involving alleged instances of illegal gambling, money laundering, and horse doping, and undertaking an aggressive review of its simulcast agreements with a number of selected secondary simulcast outlets.

The secondary simulcast outlets receiving termination notices from NYRA today were: Racing and Gaming Services, Inc., of St. Kitts, West Indies; Lakes Region Greyhound Park, of Belmont, New Hampshire; Capital Sports Limited, of Canberra, Australia; Darwin All Sports Ltd., of Darwin, Australia; Coeur d'Alene Casino, of Worley, Idaho; and the Excelsior Casino located in Aruba.

"The indictments announced last week by the federal government further reinforced the propriety and urgency of steps that were already being set into motion at NYRA to take a hard look at the entities we are doing business with," said Charles Hayward, NYRA's President and CEO. "Working in cooperation with our federal monitor, NYRA has made great strides in improving the transparency of our operations and ensuring that we employ best business practices at all times. We feel that those who wish to do business with us should be held to those same high standards. In other words, unless we know who you are and that your business practices are legal and in the best interests of the sport of horseracing, we are not going to do business with you."

The next step for NYRA will be to revise its simulcast contracts to require a new set of disclosures, background information, and information sharing, which will be required of all simulcast outlets wishing to receive and accept wagers on the NYRA signal. Entities that are unwilling or unable to meet these higher standards will not be permitted to resume betting into the NYRA pari-mutuel pools.

"The message NYRA is delivering today is one we hope the entire racing industry will follow - we must choose integrity over revenue," said William Nader, NYRA Senior Vice President. "NYRA recognizes that many of our most upstanding and loyal fans choose to wager through simulcast outlets to avail themselves of rebate opportunities. While we value the loyalty of these fans to our product, we must take proactive steps to protect the integrity of our pari-mutuel pools until we can know more about the ownership, clientele, and business practices of these simulcast outlets."

Over the past several years, interstate simulcast wagering has emerged as a key source of revenue for NYRA, accounting for approximately 12% of NYRA's current handle. NYRA estimates that the annualized loss in handle on its races from the simulcast sites it has terminated to date could be as much as $300 million.