Account-wagering platforms and racetracks who are clients of the bet-processing company United Tote experienced several outages on Monday and Tuesday due to problems at United Tote’s hub in Oregon, according to racing officials.
The disruptions appear to have been minor, but they caused several delays at racetracks on Monday and led one track, Thistledown in Ohio, to cancel the final two races of its Monday card. United Tote processes bets at several hubs in the U.S., and the hub in Portland, Ore., was the source of the Monday and Tuesday night disruptions, according to the officials.
United Tote is co-owned by Churchill Downs and the New York Racing Association, which both operate account-wagering companies. Churchill Downs owns 51 percent of United Tote, while NYRA owns 49 percent.
Patrick McKenna, a spokesman for NYRA, said in a statement that the disruptions at NYRA Bets, the association’s account-wagering operation, were caused by a “broader United Tote issue.”
“We are working directly with the small number of customers who were impacted and remain in dialogue with our partners at United Tote to understand the root cause of the outage and alleviate potential issues moving forward,” McKenna said.
Churchill Downs Inc. had not responded to a request for comment by Wednesday afternoon.
The Oregon hub also processes bets from FanDuel, a market-leading account-wagering company, as well as wagers placed at brick-and-mortar betting locations throughout the U.S. The disruptions prevented customers from placing their bets for short periods on Monday afternoon and Tuesday night, according to officials.
At Horseshoe Indianapolis on Monday, officials delayed the start of the fifth race by approximately 30 minutes as they waited for the system to be restored, according to Eric Halstrom, the general manager at the track. He said that the volume of bets processed at the hub made the decision to delay the race a “no-brainer.”
“It wasn’t even really a question of whether we would wait for them or not,” Halstrom said. “That hub is probably 50 percent of our betting [volume] on a Monday afternoon.”
Halstrom said that he listened in on a customer-service conference call with United Tote officials and track personnel as the work progressed on Monday afternoon to restore the hub.
“I have to say it was done really quickly and professionally,” Halstrom said. “It was more of a nuisance than a problem.”
Only a handful of tracks run on Monday afternoon and Tuesday night in the early fall, limiting the fallout from the disruption. Presque Isle Downs, an Erie, Penn., track owned by Churchill Downs, had a one-hour-and-23-minute gap between its first and second race, while Thistledown routside Cleveland canceled the final two races of its eight-race Monday card due to the disruption.
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