Earnings

Return to Article

Slots May Join Juleps And Hats And Ky. Race Tracks

The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Splurging on a hunch, Kerry Chapman put down $20 across-the-board on Market At Midday, a sleek thoroughbred running in the day's final race at Churchill Downs.

The high school teacher felt exhilarated when his pick thundered across the finish line as a winner — a feeling he's never had playing slot machines, a game he shrugs off as boring.

Yet count Chapman among those who support a push by lawmakers to add the glitzy contraptions to the historic home of the Kentucky Derby. Although showy celebrities and cigar-chomping fans swarm on the first Saturday in May, only sparse crowds show up many other days.

Many racing advocates believe slots could reinvigorate a struggling sport. The financial windfall would enrich race purses — which would lure more horsemen looking for hefty paydays. The final decision lies with the Kentucky Senate — where it's proving to be a tough sell.

"If slots are the answer, then they need to do it," Chapman said shortly before the small crowd headed for the exits after a day of racing on a sun-splashed Thursday afternoon.

However, the prospects of whether slots will become a Derby tradition along with flashy hats and mint juleps remains as uncertain as a horse race with no clear favorite.

The proposal, backed by Gov. Steve Beshear and House Speaker Greg Stumbo, won House passage Friday during a special session of Kentucky's General Assembly. The measure would allow Kentucky's tracks to install video gambling terminals that offer casino-style games like slots and poker.

But the legislation faces a big hurdle in the Senate, where the top leader said it lacks support. Senate President David Williams opposes legalizing slots and floated an alternative to prop up tracks by imposing a tax on lottery tickets and taxing out-of-state gambling on Kentucky races.

Churchill — seen as a citadel of horse racing — has erected luxury boxes and will test racing under the lights three nights this summer. But rolling out video slots would be revolutionary for the track steeped in 135 years of history.

"It probably would be the savior," Bill Todd, a race fan from Louisville, said Thursday while scanning the odds flashing on a TV screen for the next race at Churchill. "At the moment, it's the only thing anybody can really think of in terms of money coming into the track and into the industry."

In a state where bucolic horse farms are nestled in the Bluegrass region, the status of Kentucky's racing industry has becoming a nettlesome issue. In touting expanded gambling, Kentucky racing officials say horses are being lured away to states where casino-style gambling subsidizes purses. Kentucky tracks also face competition for gambling patrons from nearby riverboat casinos in Indiana and Illinois.

The struggles have forced Churchill to trim seven lightly attended racing days from its spring meet because revenues are down 20 percent, not including Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks days. Churchill also announced plans to reduce purses in six graded stakes races.

Churchill Downs spokesman John Asher declined to comment about the prospects of getting slot machines, but others in the industry have spoken up.

"I came from a state where we thought Kentucky was kind of the horse racing world," said Chip Woolley, the New Mexico-based trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird.

"I came out here only to find out Kentucky is barely hanging on by its fingernails."

At Sunland Park, a New Mexico track near El Paso, Texas, daily purses have mushroomed from about $30,000 a decade ago to more than $260,000 since slot machines arrived, said track racing director Dustin Dix. A casino floor featuring the slots offers a view of the racetrack as well as simulcast racing.

"Gaming has saved horse racing at Sunland Park," he said.

Track ownership has steered casino profits into racing purses, which has attracted bigger fields and better horses that lure more betting.

In Pennsylvania, purses recently increased to a daily average of $170,000 at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course near Harrisburg, largely because of casino gaming. Daily purses are now about twice what was paid out to horsemen before slots arrived in February 2008, said racing director Rob Marella.

In Kentucky, where pari-mutuel wagering and a lottery are staples, the slots proposal has drawn a strong push-back from people fearing the potential social costs.

The Rev. W.B. Bingham III, pastor of Binghamtown Baptist Church in Middlesboro, took a three-hour bus ride with dozens of others to attend a recent rally at the state Capitol in Frankfort.

Bingham said they want to protect children from addicted parents who might wager away money that could be used for food and clothing.

"We love children, and expanding gambling will definitely affect Kentucky's children," he said. "That's our No. 1 concern. How can we afford to expose them to another form of addiction?"

Others worry slots could ruin the sport.

Longtime breeder Arthur Hancock, owner of Stone Farm near Paris, Ky., referred to slots as a "Trojan horse" that could eventually cheapen racing.

"Racing is a sport with pageantry and tradition," he said. "I think it's possibly a short-term gain and a long-term drain."

Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day, the all-time winning rider at Churchill Downs, said he had "mixed feelings" about slot machines.

"I think it's a Band-Aid cure for a long-term problem," he said. "And let's leave it at that."

___

Associated Press writers Jeffrey McMurray in Lexington, Ky., and Roger Alford in Frankfort, Ky., contributed to this report.