Churchill Downs, other Ky. tracks want slots

Mark R. Chellgren

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky's horse tracks would stop competing with other forms of gambling and start cashing in under a bill introduced Tuesday that would put slot machines alongside the betting windows.

The proposal would give an exclusive gambling franchise to the state's eight existing tracks -- including famed Churchill Downs in Louisville.

The state would get 28 percent of the first money bet and the actual take would rise to 35 percent once total gambling increased. Some of the state's take would go toward local economic development and compulsive gambling treatment.

Rep. Jim Callahan, the House Democratic caucus chairman and prime sponsor of the bill, said the state could realize as much as $1.7 billion in the first six years of slot machines.

But Callahan and track officials acnowledged that the prospect for passage of the legislation is anything but a sure bet.

"We've got our work cut out for us," Churchill Downs President Alex Waldrop said.

House Speaker Jody Richards, a known opponent of expanded gambling, said sentiment in the House is "very divided, leaning against any specific proposal."

The horse racing industry has been struggling with expanded gambling for more than a decade, since the first casino riverboat arrived in neighboring Illinois.

Since then, a flotilla of boats have been launched, including huge luxury operations in Indiana that tracks say have siphoned millions of dollars from their betting windows and Kentucky tax coffers.

The idea has surfaced in the General Assembly before, but never in written form until the bill was introduced Tuesday.