Last week, the casino gambling legislation procedure in the state of Kentucky was brought to a standstill.
The racing lobbying group suddenly announced that it no longer supports the legislation bill. Previous Friday, the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), one of the organizations that strongly supported the casino legislation and additional gambling activities to state’s racetracks, said that they will no longer be among the proponents of the casino legislation.
Churchill Downs Inc. – the local provider of racing and gambling activities, has been trying to accelerate the legislation procedure for years. However, Churchil Downs’ officials met the opposition of the Republicans. In addition, the casino legislation was believed to endanger some of the state’s interests, related to racing.
In other words, the main concern of racing operators was that their revenues will undergo a serious decline once the gambling legislation bill passes.
According to Democrats of Kentucky, the casino legislation bill is not likely to pass during the next year.
Doug Cauthen, a representative of Kentucky Equine Education Project, commented on the sudden change in the standpoint of the group. He said that despite the announcement made, there were some exceptions. For example, KEEP would continue to support the so called Instant Racing machines as well as the video terminals that resemble slot machines and provide players with the chance to bet on “historical” racing.
For the time being, Kentucky Downs and Ellis Park are the venues where Instant Racing is available. The Red Mile and a Corbin-based harness track have expressed their interest in purchasing these machines for their properties as well.
This is considered to be a well-thought-out decision as the Instant Racing machines are usually a source of a stable income.
Doug Cauthen also added that members of KEEP are well aware of all benefits the Instant Racing brings. However, they have come to the conclusion that nobody can predict what the outcome of legalizing casino activities would be.
Needless to say, Cauthen’s position had its opponents.
Kevin Flanery – Churchill Downs’ President, said that all efforts, made towards limiting the gambling options of Kentucky-based players, are beneficial neither to the industry nor to the state in general.
In order to support his standpoint, Flanery made a comparison between the revenue generated by Instant Racing in Ellis Park and the revenue generated through the machines at Kentucky Downs.
Machines located in the latter venue were more profitable than those, situated in Ellis Park. The reason for this was the fact that Ellis Park is located near a casino in the neighboring state of Indiana.
