Oaklawn Park thoroughbred horseracing track in Hot Springs, Arkansas launched OaklawnAnywhere.com last December, and for the 53-day, January through mid-April 2014 live racing season, the website generated .1 million in wagers. That more than offset the .1 million drop in wagers from simulcast and live racing. But the website’s numbers pale in comparison with Oaklawn’s electronic games of skill which generated 3.6 million in the same period a year ago, up 21.8 percent, according to the Arkansas State Racing Commission.
Still, Oaklawn Director of Gaming and Wagering Bobby Geiger said of OaklawnAnywhere.com, “We’re very happy with the response over the first five months.” The website allows Arkansas residents age 18 and older to bet on races at Oaklawn and any other U.S. and international racetracks from their computers, tablets or smartphones.
Geiger said the track wanted to start a betting website more than a decade ago, but wanted the approval of the Arkansas legislature. Even though there were no laws that allowed or banned it. He said back then he saw people were signing up to place bets on the Kentucky Derby with out-of-state companies like XpressBet.com instead of driving to Oaklawn. “There was no teeth in the law that prevented out-of-state providers from coming in and signing up Arkansans. The state realizes zero and the horsemen at Oaklawn realize zero,” Geiger said. He estimated the national wagering websites currently generate about $30 million annually from horserace bettors in Arkansas.
State Senator Bill Sample said the loss of taxes motivated him to sponsor the bill allowing Oaklawn to offer online betting. “For years you could bet, but all that tax money was going to Kentucky,” Sample said. After denying Oaklawn’s request for a website for years, Sample’s bill passed the Arkansas House of Representatives 84-0 and the Senate 35-0 last year.
State Racing Commission Director Ron Oliver said OaklawnAnywhere.com does not offer anything Arkansans could not already access on other betting websites. “There were a lot of people doing it. The difference is the state gets part of the money here,” he said.
Oaklawn partnered with TwinSpires.com, a subsidiary of Churchill Downs of Louisville, Kentucky, to create the website. Geiger said website is able to verify that an individual is an Arkansas resident and is older than 18 before an account can be created.
However, online wagering has its opponents, including the conservative Family Council based in Little Rock. President Jerry Cox said, “The convenience of it being on a smartphone, for people who already have a gambling problem, I believe it does compound that. It’s just like giving a person with any other addiction an easy way to feed that addiction. It just creates more problems.” Cox added the website represents one of the largest gambling expansions in the state’s history.
Geiger said Oaklawn evenly splits the revenue the website generates with horsemen. He added the racetrack will continue to promote OaklawnAnywhere.com and how it benefits the state and horsemen. “The core of our mission was to give Arkansans a choice of a hometown provider as opposed to someone from out of state,” Geiger said.
Oaklawn and Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis recently released a report that they commissioned together, indicating the racetracks had an economic impact of $900 million in Arkansas in 2012. Southland President and General Manager Troy Keeping said the tracks commissioned the report because they felt their value to the state’s economy had not been properly measured. The report studied spending associated with racing and gambling, taxes paid, tourism and short-term construction.
Both tracks are expanding their operations. Southland is developing a 4,300 square foot, $38 million expansion that will accommodate 500 additional electronic games. Oaklawn also is investing $20 million to expand its gaming floor by 50 percent.
