House leaders skeptical of Instant Racing

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Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010

House leaders skeptical of Instant Racing

House leaders give bill cool reception

By Jack Brammer and Beth Musgrave - herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — House leaders cast doubt Friday about the future of an expanded gambling bill that passed a Senate committee Thursday.

"I don't know what we're going to do with it," House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark said of the proposal to allow at racetracks a type of electronic gambling commonly called "Instant Racing." which lets bettors wager on random previously run horse races.

"The House leadership is going to talk to our caucus," said Clark, D-Louisville. "But if we're going to have expanded gambling, and the Senate is going to agree to that, then we ought to do slots which would really capture a lot of money. But right now we're in no hurry to look at it."

Clark said he would not take up the measure until after the House and Senate settle on a budget, which is expected to take several more weeks.

House Bill 368, which is expected to pass the Senate next week, originally contained a provision sponsored by Clark that would tax advanced wagering by phone or other electronic means at the state's race tracks. The Senate State and Local Government Committee added the Instant Racing provision Thursday in hopes of generating millions of dollars for purses for the horse industry.

However, the industry has lobbied heavily for the expansion of gambling at the state's racetracks through video lottery terminals, commonly called slot machines. The Republican-led Senate has consistently blocked allowing slots at tracks.

Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, and sponsor of the amended bill, said Friday that if the House tried to add video lottery terminals to the measure during negotiations to reconcile the two different versions of the bill, he would "walk out" of the conference committee.

Clark's bill originally proposed a 0.5 percent tax on bets that are wagered electronically from locations other than the track. Thayer upped the tax to 1.5 percent on advanced deposit wagering and all other wagering at tracks.

For Instant Racing, 81.5 percent of all the money wagered would go back to bettors in the form of winnings. Of the remainder, 1.5 percent would go to the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund or the Kentucky Standardbred Development Fund for purse supplements.

Thayer said earnings from Instant Racing could double the $5 million to $6 million a year in purse supplements now awarded to Kentucky-bred horses.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said he doubts the bill goes far enough to help the horse industry or the state's anemic coffers.

"I think that (video lottery terminals) are better for the state and better for the industry," Stumbo said.

Stumbo, who sponsored a bill to add slots under the state's lottery laws, said he wanted to talk to constituents who are opposed to the expansion of gambling.

"Some of our members have requested that we seek some opinions from some of the lobbying groups that have traditionally opposed any type of expanded gambling to see whether or not they consider that to be expanded gaming," Stumbo said. "If you put those two machines side by side, a slot machine and the machine that Sen. Thayer proposes, you can't tell them apart."

Say No To Casinos Spokesman Martin Cothran said his group believes mechanized gambling in any form is a threat to the long-term health of the horse industry.

He also questioned whether Instant Racing is really a "game of skill" as supporters claim. "Instant Racing requires about the same level of skill as it takes to select which slot machine you're going to play," Cothran said.

The game gives bettors a limited set of data about the horses in a previously run race that was chosen at random. The player then uses that information to choose a winner before watching at least the last 10 seconds of the race.

[clevfan]

Instant Racing bill appears dead, author says

By Gregory A. Hall • courier-journal.com • March 25, 2010

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The author of a proposal to allow a gambling alternative to slot machines as a way to help Kentucky's horse industry effectively declared the bill dead Thursday for lack of support.

Sen. Damon Thayer had proposed adding authorization for the electronic game, called Instant Racing, to a House bill before the State and Local Government Committee, of which he is chairman.

But Thayer said Thursday that he doesn't have the votes to pass it and is no longer working on the measure, House Bill 368. He added that it would take a “perfect storm” to advance it at this point.

“I have met with the members of the Senate on this, to the point where I'm not sure they want to see me coming anymore,” he said.

A spokesman for a horse industry coalition that has backed slot machines, but also expressed interest in Instant Racing, said in a statement that the industry would continue fighting until the legislative session ends.

“Our industry will work until the very last minute of the session in the hopes that Senate Republicans will not once again turn their backs on the tens of thousands of Kentuckians who rely on the horse industry to make their living,” said Patrick Neely, executive director of the Kentucky Equine Education Project.

John Asher, a spokesman for Churchill Downs, said, “If Instant Racing is indeed dead, we are very disappointed because that means another legislative session will have passed without action to assist Kentucky's signature horse industry, which remains under assault by unprecedented competition from casinos in neighboring states and racing and breeding industries in states where purses have soared because of the infusion of casino revenues.”

A proposal for video lottery terminals died in a Senate committee in last summer's special session after the House approved it, and industry officials have blamed some senators.

Thayer said he hopes the industry doesn't continue to target Senate members in campaigns because a “good faith” effort was made to pass Instant Racing.

Kerri Richardson, a spokeswoman for Gov. Steve Beshear, who supported casino gambling in his 2007 campaign, said in a statement that with several days left in the legislative session, “It is premature to speculate on what may happen to this bill.”

Thayer said he hopes Beshear will pursue authorizing Instant Racing administratively, assuming the bill doesn't pass.

Thayer's measure would impose a 1.5 percent tax on the money bet through Instant Racing and dedicate several million dollars in expected revenue to purse supplements for Kentucky-bred thoroughbreds and some standardbred races.

Although the bill initially passed Thayer's committee on an 11-1 vote, it was sent back to the panel after opposition mounted from the Family Foundation and the anti-gambling group Say No To Casinos, which argued that the game isn't part of the pari-mutuel system allowed at tracks.

Thayer, R-Georgetown, said Thursday that he is convinced Instant Racing is a pari-mutuel game, in which players bet against each other rather than the house.

Say No To Casinos spokesman Martin Cothran did not return a call for comment.

Instant Racing has been used successfully at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas, and Kentucky's horse industry has supported it as a way to boost purses in the absence of slot machines or video lottery terminals at the tracks.

The industry has argued that it needs the revenue to compete with racing in states that supplement purses and breeding incentives with casino dollars.
Thayer said Thursday that the ambivalence to the bill voiced by House leaders who favor electronic slots also hurt the bill's chances. That, he said, created the perception among Senate members that any Instant Racing bill they approved could die in the House.

House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Louisville, who sponsored the original version of HB 368, said comments by House members didn't kill the bill and that he wasn't consulted about Thayer's version.

“If he killed the bill, it was by his actions, not by our actions,” Clark said.
Clark's original bill would have imposed a 0.5 percent on bets made by Kentuckians through online and telephone wagering companies such as Churchill Downs Inc.'s TwinSpires.com.

Thayer's bill would have set the tax at 1.5 percent on a bet made by any account-wagering customer on a Kentucky race.

Clark said he might try to resurrect his account-wagering tax, which would have generated about $400,000 in its first year, in the budget conference committee.