How Recapture Ends as a Result of SB 744

"RECAPTURE", the singularly most hated word known to any Illinois horseman. Recaptures comes from a racetrack subsidy resulting from a law that allows racetracks to recover losses on live handle as a consequence of full card simulcasting.

This most unfair guarantee began in 1995 and at that time the recapture subsidy was just $4,234,922 and in that year was reimbursed through appropriation from the Illinois Department of Agriculture to purse accounts equal to the recapture amounts.

However, as the State of Illinois, needs increased, this appropriation ceased from the Agriculture Department and the ABUSE to the Horsemen's purse account began.

By the end of 2010 the Horsemen's purse account was losing about $4.7 million at Arlington and about $2.4 million at Hawthorne.

Horsemen are painfully aware that this subsidy has eroded their purse account and has only served to further decline field size and handle and MUST BE eliminated. SB 744 gives us the vehicle to eliminate recapture.

Recapture Elimination Language as it appears in SB 744

"Beginning in the calendar year in which an organization licensee that is eligible to receive payment under this paragraph (13) begins to receive funds from electronic gaming, the amount of the payment due to all wagering facilities licensed under that organization licensee under this paragraph (13) shall be the amount certified by the Board in January of that year. An organization licensee and its related wagering facilities shall no longer be able to receive payments under this paragraph (13) beginning in the year subsequent to the first year in which the organization licensee begins to receive funds from electronic gaming."

The “paragraph (13)” referred to in SB 744 is the section of the Illinois Horse Racing Act that gives Recapture monies to the racetracks. This new language will eliminate recapture beginning the year after the track opens its electronic gaming facility. As a result, the tracks have a disincentive to open their electronic gaming facilities late in the year. By waiting until January 1, a track will receive one more year of Recapture than it would if it opened the facility the day before, on December 31.