ALBANY — The New York Racing Association’s mobile app was plagued by bugs and crashes prior to the 149th Kentucky Derby on Saturday that left some customers unable to place bets on the biggest horse racing day of the year.
The nonprofit corporation, which operates the three largest thoroughbred horse racing tracks in the state, sent out a tweet just before 5 p.m. saying it was working to address technical issues with the NYRA Bets app. The race was scheduled to post at 6:57 p.m.
NYRA spokesman Patrick McKenna said Sunday that the problem was the result of a technical glitch that lasted about an hour for most customers and was largely resolved by 5:40 p.m. When asked about wagering loss during the outage, McKenna said he did not know if there was an estimate.
McKenna said the issue was a reflection of the increased popularity of bettors placing bets via mobile apps that allow for advance-deposit wagering. The Kentucky Derby saw a new record of $188.7 million bet on the race from all sources, according to Churchill Downs. TwinSpires, the official betting partner of the Kentucky Derby, handled a record $47 million for the race, an increase of $3 million over the previous record.
“These issues are not necessarily unique to NYRA Bets within the overall ADW landscape,” he said.
Customers complained they were unable to make deposits and the app would crash for some of them or otherwise malfunction. Several noted it was not the first time the app had malfunctioned for them on a big racing day.
NYRA tweeted roughly an hour later that the problems were fixed.
“Following a temporary disruption, NYRA Bets is currently functioning…
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