Win, place, and show bets at Hawthorne Race Course outside of Chicago will continue to have the lowest takeout rate in the country when the track opens its meet on Saturday with a nine-race card. Takeout for straight bets will continue to be 12 percent, Hawthorne officials said this week. The track first lowered the takeout to 12 percent for its 2023 season. Typically, straight bets have takeouts ranging from 16-19 percent at most major tracks. Hawthorne has also stripped the “jackpot” designation for its pick six and Super Hi-5 wagers for the meet, meaning that the bets will pay off anytime there is a winner or winners. Under the jackpot designation, the entire pool for the bets was only distributed if there was a single winning ticket. A number of tracks have eliminated their jackpot-style wagers over the past three years due to criticism from bettors. Hawthorne has also added a unique bet to its wagering menu this year, the Place Pick 8, which will require a bettor to select the first- or second-place finisher in eight consecutive races. The wager will begin on each race card with the first race. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Hawthorne is scheduled to run 78 live race dates this year, from March 23 to Oct. 13. Racing is scheduled for Saturdays and Sundays until June, when Thursdays will be added to the schedule through the end of the meet. Turf racing is expected to begin the first weekend of May. Last year, the meet ended in September. “We were able to learn from last year and made some adjustments to both the racing schedule as well as the races we are offering,” said Jim Miller, Hawthorne’s director of racing. “With this schedule, it provides a good circuit for those horsemen who race in warmer destinations in the winter to be able to have a summer location that fluidly fits their schedule.” For the first time since 2017, the Illinois Derby is back on the stakes schedule. The 1 1/8-mile race will be run on April 21 with a purse of $200,000, positioned as a prep for the May 18 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown. Hawthorne will pay the Preakness entry fee to the connections of the Illinois Derby winner. Hawthorne is the last remaining Thoroughbred track in the Chicago area, and while it has extended its meets in recent years since the closure of Arlington Park to accommodate local horsemen, an air of uncertainty surrounds the track and the long-term future of the Illinois Thoroughbred industry. Foremost among the concerns is the track’s delay in constructing a casino, which was authorized by legislation in 2019. Hawthorne began preparing the property for the casino three years ago, but financing delays have all but stalled the project, despite pressure from the Illinois Gaming Board. Interest rates have shot up over the past three years as the Federal Reserve has raised rates in an attempt to quell inflation. “We’ve all been navigating the capital markets in our respective ways to try to put the right capital together, to try to put the right investors together, so we can move forward with our projects,” since Kevin Kline, the chief executive officer of gaming at Hawthorne, at an Illinois Gaming Board meeting in early February. A total of 94 horses, including also-eligibles, was entered for the nine-race opening-day card. Dave McCaffery, the executive director of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, said that Hawthorne had approximately 650 horses on the grounds last week, but the track is hoping to have 900 horses on the backstretch. The purse account is currently $11 million overpaid, and overnight purses will average approximately $150,000 a day. A casino at Hawthorne would go a long way toward putting the industry on solid footing. Revenues from the casino would improve the financial stability of Hawthorne’s owners, while also directing subsidies to the purse account. “Things are pretty damned dire, but there’s still hope,” said McCaffery. “It’s a game that has been built on hope.” -- additional reporting by Marcus Hersh :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.