Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural on declining revenue and the need for The Meadowlands to get a casino for horse racing to survive at harness racing’s biggest U.S. track.

by Debbie Little

For several years, The Meadowlands has been touting their nightly, weekly and yearly handle, which for 2024 averaged $3 million a night for the fourth time in the last five years, by far the biggest number in the sport in all of North America.

Although those numbers paint a rosy picture, they’re not the only elements that contribute to the finished work of art.

HRU spoke with Meadowlands president/chief executive officer Jeff Gural to get his thoughts on how 2024 went at harness racing’s top track. This conversation took place last week, prior to The Meadowlands sending out a press release on Tuesday (Jan. 14) with the headline “Meadowlands revenue in decline” (see Page 8).

“I think from a betting standpoint, we’re continuing to see a slow decline in our handle, mainly on-track and on the import side,” Gural said. “We make most of our money on the import of other signals, and what you’re seeing is a slow decline because our customers are old like me, and they’re dying off, or they’re betting on sports, which they can do. In New Jersey, you can play casino games online, so, we’re competing with the casinos.

“Someone told me recently, he said, ‘Jeff, think about it. Racing would be the equivalent of having a casino where the slot machines work for two minutes and then you shut them down for 22 minutes, and then they work for two minutes and then you shut them down.’ He said, ‘You know, people find other forms of gambling is just more action and less of a skill.’ So, if you’re playing slot machines, you can press the buttons three or four times in a minute.

“If you’re watching sports, you can have prop bets, so you can have action constantly, because things change in a football game — a long pass, an interception, a fumble — things can dramatically change quickly, so it’s just more action. And there’s a skill to betting on horse racing, and people just don’t have the time to learn that skill anymore. Back when I was young, the only gambling that existed was at racetracks, and they were packed. I would go all the time. I had a great time.”

Gural cited the recent pandemic as another reason why people no longer attend the races.

“COVID hurt us because it forced people who liked to bet on racing to learn how to use their phone or iPad to bet,” he said. “Once they learned that then I think they basically said, ‘Gee, this is a lot easier than fighting the traffic going to The Meadowlands.’ So, I think COVID hurt us because of the fact that people were forced. If they wanted to bet, they had no choice but to bet online, and that’s what happened.”

The Big M is also at a disadvantage as the only track in the Northeast to not have a casino, or, at the very least, slots.

“The other harness tracks are totally dependent on the revenue from slot machines, and the revenue from racing is unimportant and that’s part of it… So, if we don’t figure out a way to improve the product, who knows what could happen?” Gural said. “It’s not good.”

According to Gural, one way to improve the product would be a casino at the East Rutherford mile oval.

“To be honest, I think if we don’t get a casino at The Meadowlands in the next two or three years, most likely, or some kind of subsidy, then we would probably be closed, because I expect to lose money this year and next and I feel like nobody wants to write a check,” he said. “So, it’s very, very gloomy, although, to be honest, I’m optimistic that we will get a casino, that’s my take. But without a casino, we’re in big trouble.”

Gural is well versed on what it would take to make a casino at The Meadowlands a reality.

“Two things have to happen,” he said. “First, there has to be a referendum allowing casinos at The Meadowlands. And then once that happens, they would probably open bidding for casino companies to bid on building a casino at The Meadowlands… If they do open the casino and we’re not the operator, then they have to reimburse us for the unamortized cost of what we spent, and then we would just close. So, if somebody got a casino at The Meadowlands and it wasn’t us, then we would close the track, unless they made it so that that casino had to subsidize us.”

Gural has been down a similar path before in New Jersey, since an amendment to expand casino gambling to Northern New Jersey was overwhelmingly defeated, by more than three-quarters of the voters, in 2016, leaving Atlantic City with a nearly five-decade monopoly on casino gaming in the Garden State.

“But the referendum [in 2016] was designed for us to lose, because basically it said, ‘Are you in favor of a casino in Northern New Jersey?’ it wasn’t specifically at The Meadowlands, so my friends told me, ‘I can’t vote for that. I don’t want to put the casino in my town,’” Gural said. “So, it’s got to be at The Meadowlands, because there’s no opposition to that, because no one lives there. Everybody knows how to get there. Everybody knows that the highways will go there, that involves 80,000 people. So, getting a few thousand people that come into a casino is not a big deal.

“So, those are the two things we need, the referendum that allows casino gambling at The Meadowlands, and then we would need to be awarded that license. I’m optimistic that would happen, but I feel that we can’t put it on the ballot again and have it lose, it would never come back. So, my gameplan is to wait for New York to open the downstate casinos next year or in 2026 and hope that people who are living in northern New Jersey then have to go to Yonkers, or Aqueduct, but most likely Yonkers, and drive over the bridge, sit in traffic, and pay an $18 toll or whatever it is. I’m hoping that people would look at it and say, ‘Well, this is crazy. Why don’t they put a casino at The Meadowlands?’

“But in the meantime, it has taken New York quite a long time to come up with a process, but it appears they now have a schedule, which would mean that they would be awarding the casino licenses at the end of next year, so hopefully Yonkers and Aqueduct get casino licenses because they can open quickly. Somebody else, it’ll take them three or four years to build. So, I’m rooting hard for MGM [Yonkers Raceway] and Genting [Aqueduct] to get a license.”

As for 2025, Gural will also be rooting hard on the first Saturday in August.

“Well, I’d like to win the Hambletonian,” Gural said with a laugh. “I have a lot of horses; I’m partners with Ake [Svanstedt], and he’s a great trainer. Last year, we won the Hambletonian Oaks with Warrawee Michelle, and we won the [Breeders Crown] 2-Year-old Filly Trot with a horse I bred [Lady Landia].

“I wish I knew what to do to get people to come more, it’s frustrating. I really thought if I’d spent $120 million to build a brand-new facility and made it cool that I could get people to come. We’ve succeeded in getting it on TV; lucky that I was friendly with the guy who’s chairman of NYRA [New York Racing Association].

“It’s frustrating that I can’t get these 3-year-olds to race at 4, although, apparently, two of them are infertile and coming back to race at 4… The truth is, I don’t even think it’s such an economic benefit to not race at 4 to be honest. I raced Six Pack at 4 and he made over $500,000. I had a great time watching him race and at the end of the day, when we syndicated him, we syndicated for the same price that we were offered when he was 3. So, by racing him, I made an extra [$581,314], had fun, and [the syndication] didn’t suffer at all financially… I mean, look at Europe. It’s so much more successful in Europe. And the major differences are, they have fewer 2-year-old races, and they breed and race, so the best horses, people know who they are. Whereas our 2-year-olds, nobody knows who they are. But it is what it is.

“If we get a casino, and I have the money from the casino, I’ll really invest in the sport, and then I’ll be able to maybe make some changes by having races for the older horses. So, cross your fingers, because we need to get a casino.”