Go Bananas

How to play Go Bananas

The new Belmont is part of a major restructuring of the New York Racing Association’s operations, with Belmont replacing Aqueduct as the year-round home of downstate thoroughbred racing.

Aqueduct staged its final races June 28, ending a 132-year history at the Queens track. It remained open for simulcast wagering until September 7 before closing permanently.

The new Belmont is significantly different than the sprawling venue it replaced. The former 1.25 million-square-foot grandstand, which had become vastly oversized for the contemporary racing crowd, was demolished to make way for a much smaller, modern facility with a focus on hospitality and premium seating.

How to play Go Bananas

Yaxley hopes DEI will become “a fundamental part of how organisations operate”, with technology and people analytics helping businesses to make fairer, evidence-based decisions on talent.

“Ultimately, I hope the conversation evolves from representation alone to a stronger focus on belonging,” she says. “Diverse teams are important, but lasting progress comes when people feel valued, heard and able to contribute fully.”

For a sector facing intense competition for talent, fostering an inclusive workplace is becoming as much of a commercial priority as a cultural one.

How to play Go Bananas

While Nevada is considered the top gaming state in the US, its regulatory framework related to technology has been seen as slow-moving and cluttered in comparison to other up-and-coming jurisdictions around the US. Ever since NGCB Chair Mike Dreitzer took over last June, modernisation has been a top priority, and these latest revisions are an extension of that.

“We finally got to a point where we said, you know what, let’s drop all our other efforts right now and get these over the finish line and get them up for comment so that we can make sure that we’re current with things,” Jeremy Eberwein, chief of the board’s Technology Division, told iGB.

The bulk of the work revolved around compiling and codifying the technical information in one place, Eberwein said. There were some existing Technical Standards, but other requirements lived in the state’s Minimum Internal Control Standards, which are a broad mix of technical and procedural requirements.