The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation recently announced it will allow West Flagler Associates, operators of Magic City Casino in Miami, to offer jai alai instead of greyhound racing. The move is part of a legal battle over the controversial summer jai alai permit. It’s also the first time a parimutuel facility has been allowed to drop live races and still offer slots.
Effective since 1980, the summer jai alai law allows Miami-Dade and Broward parimutuels with the lowest betting handle for two consecutive years to convert to summer jai alai permits. If those parimutuels do not want to convert to jai alai, other facilities can request the permits.
John Lockwood, Magic City’s attorney, first requested the summer jai alai permit for the facility in 2011. The department’s Division of Parimutuel Wagering denied the track’s request to eliminate dog races, offer jai alai and keep slots, which were installed after voters approved them in a 2004 referendum.
However, the 3rd District Court of Appeal ordered gambling regulators to reconsider the issue, leading to regulators’ reversal, with the condition that the jai alai matches must take place at the same facility where the current greyhound permit is operated. In a declaratory statement, Parimutuel Wagering Director Anthony Glover wrote, “It is apparent that the legislature intended for the term `licensed pari-mutuel facility’ to refer to the physical location or piece of property utilized for parimutuel wagering, rather than just the racetrack or jai alai fronton itself.”
The agency’s decision will not have a broad impact, but operators of other gambling facilities expressed concern. Former Department of Business and Professional Regulation Deputy Secretary Scott Ross, a lobbyist for gambling operators, said, “It’s pretty clear that the department intends for this to not have any far-reaching effects, but once again, John Lockwood has masterfully used a unique set of circumstances to create a positive outcome for his client.”
Hartman and Tyner, Inc., and H&T Gaming Inc., operators of rival Mardi Gras Casino and Racetrack in Broward County, had sought to intervene in the case. Their lawyers argued Magic City was asking regulators to establish “a new and completely unfounded policy that improperly expands the types of permits eligible for slot machine gaming beyond what the plain terms” of the Constitution and state law allow.
But gambling officials rejected the petition to intervene, stating Mardi Gras had not shown “with particularity what real and immediate injury or impact the outcome of the declaratory statement would have had on the intervenors.”
Isadore Havenick, vice president of the family owned West Flagler Associates, said Magic City had wanted to stop offering dog races in Miami because “nobody wants to watch them.” West Flagler Associates also operates a greyhound track in Southwest Florida and owns a 25 percent share of a jai alai fronton in Dania Beach. The Havenicks and other racetrack owners want lawmakers to let parimutuels decouple live horse or dog races from more lucrative slots or card rooms. “Since decoupling hasn’t happened, and since jai alai has to run fewer performances than dogs do, we said if we have two permits at the same location, why can’t we switch sports that we do here. Nobody’s watching. Our dog men complain that they have to come over to Miami and deal with Miami when they get no customers in the stands. So this is a way for us to try a new sport and see if we can make it go of that,” Havenick said.
Until decoupling is legislated, dogs will continue to race in Florida because if parimutuel owners want to continue to operate other gambling activities. Under state law, only parimutuel facilities can offer card rooms and slots and those that wish to open card rooms must keep their level of racing about the same as before their card rooms opened. They’re not allowed to adjust the number of races they offer even though the demand for dog racing has declined.
State Senator Rob Bradley said, “If you isolate decoupling of dogs, I think that you probably would have a majority of legislators, including myself, who believe it makes little sense to require under law an activity that no one wants to watch and many people consider inhumane.” He noted, “What really is the impediment in any gaming legislation is the fact that you can’t do it piecemeal. If you try to only deal with decoupling or only deal with another issue related to gaming, as the bill starts to travel all of the other gaming issues get amended on to the bill and everything becomes related to everything.”
His colleague, state Senator Dana Young added, “The issue is disturbing because unlike some of the other decoupling issues in terms of jai alai and saddle racing, in this situation you have dogs that are being bred for the sole purpose of racing with no one watching. Their racing career is two or three years max. And then the lucky ones get adopted out, but the vast majority are euthanized.”
But greyhound owners, breeders and trainers are a strong political force in the state capital. They have argued that decoupling will kill their industry and eliminate thousands of related jobs. They also said Florida voters should have a say in whether standalone card rooms and casinos should be allowed to replace longstanding parimutuel facilities. Greyhound industry lobbyist Jack Cory said, “There are a lot of legislators that realize if you don’t have live parimutuels you are going to have mini casinos. I think there are a lot of them that realize if you decouple greyhounds then jai alai is next and horse racing is next.”
The state’s 12 dog tracks took in $240 million in bets during the fiscal year that ended June 2016–half the amount wagered a decade earlier. State regulators said they now spend more money regulating the greyhound industry than they receive in tax revenue from the races.
