Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Texas Tries for Slots

January 14, 2008

Texas' ailing racing industry is planning an expensive gamble for survival — a $3 million campaign and lobbying effort to bring slot machines to the state's horse and dog tracks.

Texans for Economic Development, the umbrella group for track owners, breeders and other segments of the racing industry, has budgeted $1 million to contribute to campaigns in 2008 legislative elections, and $2 million for a lobbying effort to convince lawmakers that the tracks need slot machines to survive.

It's a tough sell. State lawmakers have brought up the possibility of slots at tracks in the past, but all efforts have failed under opposition to expanding gambling in Texas. Proponents want Texas voters to decide.

Group President Tommy Azopardi said the $1 million will be targeted on about a dozen races in the state House of Representatives.

"It's not about Democrats and Republicans, it's not about the speaker's race," Azopardi said. "It's not about anything other than, 'Are you for slot or not?'"

The effort is sure to run into the same opposition that killed previous efforts when the Legislature reconvenes in regular session in January 2009.

"It's not economic development," said Suzii Paynter, director of the Christian Life Commission associated with Texas Baptists. "It's pork to a few track owners. It's casino operators looking for a door into the state."

According to figures reporting to the Texas Racing Commission, the state's seven major tracks are all losing money, sometimes in the millions of dollars a year.

The dog racing track in Corpus Christi is closing for a year, hoping the prospects for legislative help improve.

Scott Savin, chief operation officer of Southwest Florida Enterprises, which owns tracks in Florida and the Corpus Christi track, said the gambler's appetite has gone away from studying and handicapping horses and dogs to the instant gratification of slot machines and card games.

Any boom in construction jobs would be temporary before gambling money is diverted from the consumer economy. Money gambled is money not spent on clothes and household goods and services, Paynter said.