One of the first states to approve slot machine gambling at horse tracks, New Mexico now has been tagged with the worst safety record in racing. Nationwide, the newspaper found the industry “still mired in a culture of drugs and lax regulation and a fatal breakdown rate that remains far worse than in most of the world.” In addition, slots are now the tail that wag the horse, accounting for most of the revenue at tracks and turning racing into a side business, and perhaps the biggest reason for safety plummeting.
