CDI’s New Twinspires Helps Replace Lost Handle During Derby

Churchill Downs Inc. (CDI) President & CEO Bob Evans on an investor conference call Wednesday said that CDI’s new TwinSpires betting system “replaced just over half the handle on the Kentucky Derby and Oaks cards given up” when TVG and Youbet dropped races from Churchill Downs, according to Gregory Hall of the Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL. The XpressBet, AmericaTAB and CDI’s TwinSpires sites combined for an additional $6.2M this year over what XpressBet and AmericaTAB did in ’06; TVG and Youbet handled $11-12M in bets on Derby and Oaks days last year. Evans said that he “remains convinced the company’s new approach to account wagering is right for the long term, despite telephone registration problems with TwinSpires.” Hall noted about 9,500 people signed up, but many “complained about lengthy telephone waits for registration and general assistance.” Evans said that the account-wagering impact on the bottom line was “muted because Churchill received more fees from the new arrangement than it would have through TVG or Youbet.com.” Evans: “Everybody makes the mistake of equating handle to revenue if you’re a track and equating handle to purses if you’re the horsemen. What has changed here dramatically is that the handle that we gave up was at much lower host fee rates than the handle that we got this year” (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL, 5/10).