Monday, April 16, 2007

Horse racetrack owners in Illinois are lobbying hard for legislation that
would allow slot machines and other electronic games at racetracks, saying
the measure is needed to keep the struggling industry alive. Collinsville's
Fairmount Park contends that in the competition to field quality race
horses, the state's five racetracks can't compete with out-of-state tracks
that subsidize their purses with revenue from slot machines. But riverboat
casino owners are less than supportive of the proposal and anti-gambling
advocates staunchly oppose it, calling it a way to essentially add five
land-based casinos in Illinois. The "slots at tracks" issue is one of the
central components of a gaming expansion bill - worth between $2.3 billion
and $3.5 billion - that the gaming committee of the Illinois House is
reviewing today in Chicago. In addition, the bill calls for adding four new
riverboats in and around Chicago and increasing the number of gamblers
allowed on riverboats at any one time to 2,000, up from 1,200. "It becomes a
critical thing for us," said Fairmount Park owner Brian Zander, who is
sending representatives of the track to the committee hearing. Zander said
Illinois' tracks "can't offer enough" in prize money to attract horses away
from competing tracks in Iowa and Indiana. Without the slots, Zander said,
he doesn't know how much longer Fairmount Park can stay open. Zander
estimates that the 500 games the legislation would allow Fairmount Park to
install would generate an additional $60 million in revenue a year, allowing
it to offer competitive prize money and to resume winter harness racing,
last offered in 1999. By again offering harness racing, Fairmount Park could
once again provide year-round work to its 750 employees, most of who have to
find other ways to support themselves during the October through February
off-season, Zander said. Riverboat owners have been much cooler toward the
bill, despite its provisions to give them a lower tax rate and increase the
number of games on boats. "I think the general consensus would be that we
prefer alternatives to slots at tracks," said Tom Swoik, spokesman for the
Illinois Casino Gaming Association. Anita Bedell, executive director for
the anti-gambling Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems,
said the proposal is just another way to expand gaming. "It's not going to
preserve an industry. It's going to turn it into a land-based casino with
horse racing as a sideshow," she said. The state struck a deal eight years
ago that let riverboats dock permanently and would have given racetracks a
cut of the revenue from a casino near O'Hare Airport. But that casino got
bogged down in litigation and never opened, leaving racetracks looking for
another way to boost their earnings. The current proposal is meant to be a
"consensus bill," offering benefits to the casinos and tracks as well as to
municipalities by establishing a $25 million economic redevelopment fund for
distressed communities. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, is
confident he can get the bill out of the Legislature and onto the desk of
Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The governor has promised he will not come out against
the bill while it is still in the Legislature, something many blamed for the
downfall of a similar gaming expansion bill in 2004. But it seems far from
clear that the casino industry is on board, with the casino association
polling its members as late as Tuesday and Wednesday to determine what
position to take at today's hearing. Swoik said the casino owners still
have reservations about many aspects of the bill, including over-saturating
the Chicago market and overburdening the Illinois Gaming Board, which must
approve "virtually everything" a casino does - from creating a new card game
to moving a turnstile.