New York Racinos: The Full List of Track Casinos and Harness Racing

How racinos work in New York

The legal basis for New York racinos is a 2001 state law, revised in 2003, that allowed video lottery terminals at racetracks with local approval. The machines look like slots, but each result comes from a central lottery system. New York now calls them video gaming machines, and our video lottery terminals guide explains how they differ from casino slots.

Oversight sits with the New York State Gaming Commission, which licenses the racetracks, approves racing dates and publishes weekly and monthly reports for every gaming floor. Because these halls run under lottery rules, the minimum age for play and for pari-mutuel betting is 18. Only the commercial casinos, Tioga Downs among them, set the age at 21.

The money was meant to rescue racing. A fixed share of machine revenue goes to purses and to breeding funds for New York-bred horses, the operators keep a commission for running the venues, and most of the rest flows to the state, where lottery income supports education. Our racino revenue page compares these formulas with other states.

The full list of New York racinos

The list is weighted toward western and central New York, where four of the seven tracks lie within a few hours’ drive of each other. Downstate there is only one racino left, and the Capital Region has one. Each venue page covers racing dates, the gaming floor, dining, hotels and directions in detail.

Each racino in brief

Empire City Casino is the giant of the group, with roughly 4,500 machines at Yonkers Raceway beside the New York City line. MGM Resorts operates it and VICI Properties owns the real estate. Harness racing runs on weeknights for most of the year, and the Yonkers Trot and Messenger, two Triple Crown races, are held here each summer.

Saratoga Casino Hotel opened the state’s first racino floor on January 28, 2004. It is a harness track on Jefferson Street, separate from the famous thoroughbred Race Course across the road, with a Four-Diamond hotel and a Morton’s steakhouse. Its 2026 meet runs from February 1 into mid-December, the longest season upstate.

Finger Lakes near Rochester is the only thoroughbred racino, running early-week afternoon cards from late April to late November. Its video gaming floor opened in 2004, and its signature race is the New York Derby for state-bred three-year-olds. Delaware North runs it alongside Hamburg Gaming under a shared rewards program.

Batavia Downs is unusual for its owner, a public benefit corporation that pays its earnings to 17 counties and cities in western New York. The half-mile track first raced in 1940, closed in the 1990s and reopened in 2002. Its 2026 meet runs from July 22 to December 19, and summer concerts take place on the track itself.

Hamburg Gaming sits at the Hamburg Fairgrounds south of Buffalo, beside Buffalo Raceway, a half-mile oval that has raced since 1942. The hall offers more than 900 machines from 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. Racing runs in spring and early summer, and the track plans to open in March 2027 without its stretch passing lane.

Tioga Downs began as a racino in 2006 but now holds one of four upstate commercial casino licenses, which brings live table games, a poker room and a FanDuel retail sportsbook. Its five-eighths-mile oval races from May to September, and the resort adds a hotel, a spa and an 18-hole golf course in the Southern Tier.

Vernon Downs, between Utica and Syracuse, shares an owner with Tioga Downs. It has raced since 1953, survived closure scares in 2008 and 2017, and now pairs about 500 machines with an all-suite hotel. Live cards go on Friday and Saturday evenings from April to November, headed by the Zweig Memorial for three-year-old trotters.

Harness racing calendar across the state

Harness racing dominates, and the meets are spread so that some live racing runs in almost every month. Yonkers opened its 2026 season on January 19, Saratoga followed on February 1, and Buffalo Raceway raced through spring until mid-July. Vernon Downs began on April 18, Tioga Downs in May, and Batavia Downs took over the late season from July 22.

New York-bred horses race for their own money in the New York Sire Stakes, whose cards rotate among the harness tracks at New York racinos through the summer and autumn. Our horse racing schedule shows which tracks race on a given day, and the pari-mutuel betting guide explains how the wagering pools work.

History of New York racinos

Saratoga’s opening in January 2004 was followed within weeks by Finger Lakes, and the other upstate tracks added floors over the next few years. Empire City opened in stages from October 2006 and reached 5,300 machines by March 2007. Aqueduct took longer: after years of failed bids, Resorts World New York City opened there in October 2011.

Two tracks have since left the list. Monticello Raceway in the Catskills closed its gaming floor in April 2019, a year after Resorts World Catskills opened nearby, though it still races. Resorts World New York City won a commercial license in December 2025, added live table games in 2026, and Aqueduct ran its last live race on June 28, 2026.

Downstate racing has now moved to a rebuilt Belmont Park on Long Island, which has no gaming floor. Empire City came close to becoming a full casino as well, but MGM withdrew its application in October 2025. Our history of racinos traces how New York’s 2001 law fit the wider national wave of racetrack gaming.

Neighboring racino states

Pennsylvania, across the southern border, has the closest parallel to New York racinos: racetrack casinos with full slots and table games at tracks such as Presque Isle Downs and Mohegan Pennsylvania, covered on our Pennsylvania racinos page. Ohio runs seven video lottery racinos, and Massachusetts has Plainridge Park, a harness track with slots.