Horse racing industry hopes to feed on casino oats

Mark R. Chellgren

Monday, Sept. 19, 2005 | 10:21 a.m.

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky's horse interests are again promoting the idea of casinos in Kentucky, so long as existing race tracks get to own and operate them.

The proposal released Friday is short on details, but focuses on the long-standing position of the tracks that casinos should operate for the financial benefit the horse industry.

Gambling advocates have long touted casinos as a cure for the state's financial ills without the necessity of a broad-based tax increase. Jim Navolio, head of the Kentucky Equine Education Project, tossed around numbers of perhaps $400 million to $450 million a year for the state from eight casinos assigned to the existing race tracks.

The proposal would also include money from casinos directed to the areas without the new gambling halls, a bone to the many rural opponents of expanded gambling in the Kentucky General Assembly.

Like a casino proposal by Sen. David Boswell, D-Owensboro, the horse industry would place the matter on the ballot by way of a proposed constitutional amendment for a voter referendum.

From there, the two proposals part company. Boswell would create nine casino licenses, with five for tracks, but four others earmarked for other areas of the state.

"I just don't think they ought to have a monopoly on the casino licenses," Boswell said earlier this week.

At their press conference Friday, horse interests invoked a term reminiscent of nuclear weapons -- nonproliferation -- to support the idea that gambling should be restrained to places where it now exists, apparently overlooking the hundreds of bingo parlors and lottery stands around the state.

"We do not want to see Kentucky become another Las Vegas," said Navolio. "Keep gambling where it is presently conducted."

A list of questions remain unanswered about the horse industry's proposal, from a legislative sponsor to whether casinos might be located at off-track betting parlors, which are also state-licensed betting facilities.

The horse industry proposal comes the same year that it got a $15 million annual tax break from the legislature in the form of a rebate on the sales tax on stud fees that will create a new fund to provide incentives to breeders and others.

Opponents of expanded gambling have long worried about a united front in favor of casinos.

"What they propose is a huge network to bilk Kentucky citizens out of their wealth," said Ken Ostrander of the Family Foundation.

Ostrander, who said he supports the horse industry generally, differentiated between race tracks and casinos, which he called "Trojan horses" that will actually let gambling companies eventually run horse racing out of the state.