The Iowa Greyhound Park in Dubuque has announced plans for a final, shortened season in 2022.
General Manager and Director of Racing Brian Carpenter said the season would last 30 to 60 days compared to 112 racing days this year. But even that may not be possible, he stated, because dogs that raced in Dubuque also competed at tracks in Florida; however, in 2018, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to end greyhound racing at the end of the 2020 season. That upset the industry and has led to a dramatic decrease in greyhound breeding, Carpenter said. “We don’t know if we will get enough dogs,” he commented.
In addition, Iowa Greyhound Park has been able to survive thanks to subsidies going back to 2014, when Dubuque’s Mystique Casino & Resort, now Q Casino and Hotel, and the casino in Council Bluffs reached a settlement allowing the casinos to sever ties with the greyhound industry. Under this deal, Council Bluffs agreed to pay an annual subsidy of $4.6 million to Iowa Greyhound Park through 2022 and Q Casino agreed to pay a yearly subsidy of $500,000 through 2021.
Carpenter said these subsidies have allowed the park, which opened in 1985, to operate in the black. “We never did make it to a point where we could survive on our own. We were heading in the right direction. Every year we were going up. But we were not where we needed to be. We just ran out of time. We lasted longer than most people expected we would,” Carpenter stated.
