Stop Predatory Gambling

Casinos look to end their support for racing

by spgadmin

Liz Benston of The Las Vegas Sun has a story this week about how casinos are trying to shed greyhound racing as part of their predatory gambling operations because it is no longer profitable.

Casino gambling would not exist in many states but for dog and horse tracks and their financial problems. Over the past two decades, several states legalized casinos at the site of dog and horse tracks for the stated purpose of subsidizing these businesses with slot machine profits.

Casinos shrewdly positioned themselves as the vehicle “save the racing industry.” Yet wagering amounts on greyhound racing continue to plummet year after year. Now companies like Harrah’s are offering money to states to allow them to stop it all together. Iowa’s two casinos with greyhound tracks (including one owned by Harrah’s) want to pay the state $10 million a year instead of diverting $12 million a year in slot revenue to supplement the prize money divided up among dog owners and breeders.

According to Benston:  

Harrah’s calls greyhound racing a giant waste of money and resources — including real estate that could be used for more profitable enterprises.

“It’s like a horse and buggy manufacturer getting a subsidy from an auto manufacturer,” Harrah’s spokesman Gary Thompson says. “We’re subsidizing a dying business.”

Using slot money to support tracks never made much economic sense to begin with, though racetrack casinos were more politically palatable at the time, adds Jan Jones, the company’s senior vice president of communications and government relations.

“Horse and dog breeders have their share of political influence,” Jones says. “There were jobs at stake. And these facilities existed to begin with. It just seemed easier to put slots where betting was already taking place.”

This year, it is greyhound racing. In five years, it will horse racing. So why are states still considering the legalization of slots at racetracks to “save jobs”?