Rivals spar over efforts to expand Idaho gambling
Sunday, November 2, 2008 1:36 AM PDT
JOHN MILLER
Associated Press
BOISE — A northern Idaho race track’s owners fear a now-stalled push by a rival to legalize betting on computer-generated horse races by November has engendered so much bad will among lawmakers that any further efforts to convince the 2009 Legislature to expand gaming options could be doomed.
The conflict pits Coeur d’Alene Racing, whose Tuscaloosa, Ala.,-based owners run the Greyhound Park & Event Center in Post Falls, against the San Diego, Calif.-based owners of Capitol Racing, which operates Boise’s Les Bois Park. It comes as the groups seek to bolster racing revenue hit by a dour economy and competition from the state lottery and tribal casinos.
Coeur d’Alene Racing’s Scott Phelps, whose partners include Paul Bryant Jr., son of football coaching great Bear Bryant, told The Associated Press this week he’d planned to ask lawmakers in 2009 to back a scratch-ticket lottery game sold only at tracks and a possible proposal for trackside gaming machines similar to those at American Indian casinos.
After Capitol Racing’s gambit to win new rules allowing betting on so-called ‘‘virtual racing’’ foundered this week, however, Phelps said he may not ask for anything.
‘‘Our approach was to build consensus among legislators, the executive branch and the judicial branch,’’ he said. ‘‘Unfortunately, Capitol Racing evaluated that the Legislature wasn’t going to be accepting, and decided to try it as a rule.’’
Coeur d’Alene Racing no longer offers live dog racing in Post Falls, only simulcast racing broadcast from elsewhere.
Lawmakers on House and Senate State Affairs subcommittees voted 5-1 Tuesday against a temporary rule approved by the Idaho State Racing Commission to allow playing ponies in cyberspace. Though the lawmakers’ vote is only advisory, it virtually guarantees racing commissioners will ditch the rule, especially after Gov. C.L. ‘‘Butch’’ Otter also pulled his support. The commission meets on Tuesday.
Coeur d’Alene Racing’s lawyers maintain a 1992 amendment to the Idaho Constitution requires ‘‘enabling legislation’’ before new gaming forms are allowed. Meanwhile, attorneys for Capitol Racing contend only new administrative rules were needed to expand pari-mutual betting to include gambling on cyberspace thoroughbreds.
That stance drew opposition from lawmakers such as House Speaker Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale; Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star; and Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, who labeled it an attempt ‘‘to circumvent the legislative process.’’
On Friday, Moyle told The AP that Capitol Racing’s push for a new rule didn’t cultivate favorable feelings. Still, advancing a gambling expansion measure in the 2009 session would be a difficult proposition, he said.
‘‘I think the rule was to get around the Legislature, to get around the citizens,’’ Moyle said. ‘‘But any bill to expand gambling, even without the controversy, would be hard to get through.’’
Capitol Racing owner Steve Bieri, who owns 30 percent of the startup company aiming to provide betting opportunities on virtual horses, countered he never sought to skirt the Legislature. He pointed out that a mediator who oversaw an Oct. 9 hearing on the matter concluded the rule change was legal. In addition, legislators would have voted on a permanent rule after the session starts in January, giving them the last word.
‘‘We knew all along they would have the final voice,’’ Bieri told the AP Friday, adding he’ll now approach lawmakers to gauge their appetite for a virtual racing bill. ‘‘I have no reason to believe they would do anything other than give us a fair hearing, in the forum they deem appropriate.’’
Both sides have waded into the 2008 political fray. Capitol Racing has given $2,500 to the Idaho Republican Party Central Committee and an additional $19,000 to mostly Republican candidates. Separately, Coeur d’Alene Racing has chipped in some $90,000 to political action committees that so far paid out nearly $33,000, also to mostly GOP candidates, according to the Idaho secretary of state.
Since the first Idaho Lottery ticket was sold in 1989 and American Indian casinos expanded through the 1990s, revenue from live horse races in Idaho has shriveled from about $10 million annually in the early 1980s to just $3.2 million in 2007. Revenue from all live and simulcast horse and dog racing combined was nearly $20 million in 2006; through the first nine months of 2008, it’s just $14.7 million, according to the Idaho State Racing Commission.
Bieri said he’s lost $1 million annually on Ada County-owned Les Bois Park since taking over operations in 2005.
‘‘The horse racing industry in Idaho is in trouble,’’ said Dennis Jackson, executive director of the Idaho State Racing Commission. ‘‘Attendance is down at the race track. I don’t think anybody saw virtual racing as the answer to that. But it was a start.’’
Horse groups including the Idaho Thoroughbred Association, the Idaho Quarter Horse Association, the Eastern Idaho Horsemen and the state Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association also supported the plan, expecting up to 9 percent of virtual racing proceeds to help bolster Les Bois purses that Bieri says he may otherwise be forced to cut.
‘‘The fact that we have all met and agreed on something is phenomenal in and of itself,’’ said Tawnja Elison, president of the Idaho Thoroughbred Association. ‘‘It’s something that will help our purses.’’
Still, the idea of betting on virtual horses aroused strong feelings from conservative Christian groups including the Idaho Values Alliance that oppose gambling on moral grounds. Its head, Bryan Fischer, said allowing such races would provide another outlet that ‘‘preys on human weakness.’’
