Wyoming Downs, one of two companies licensed to operate historic horse racing machines in the state, recently closed half of its eight locations and reduced hours at the others.
Wyoming Downs and Wyoming Horse Racing both were forced to shut down last October after the state attorney general declared the machines violated state gambling law. The Wyoming Pari-Mutuel Commission agreed with the attorney general’s ruling. Commissioners were concerned that although betting the horse races was partly based on skill, built-in bonus rounds did not comply with state law banning games of chance.
Both historic racing operations reopened by December with new machines that did not include bonus rounds. However, Wyoming Downs Chief Operating Officer Rick Cook said customers don’t care for the new law-abiding versions of the machines. As a result, the company has had to close its venues in Gillette, Evansville, Cheyenne and Laramie. “Any time you play a game like that, the attractiveness is the action, and these games appear to not have the action or the payback that the customers are looking for. And by payback, I don’t mean large amounts of money. I mean paybacks that keep them sitting at the game and playing for some time.”
Cook said Wyoming Downs recently asked the Pari-Mutuel Commission to consider a new game that’s in development. “We are working to develop a game that will be attractive to players and meet the rules. But that development and deployment has taken longer than we thought it would.”
Cook said the commission declined to approve a new game that let players bet on multiple races at once, yet showed only one. “The games we are trying to get approved use more than one race to decide the outcome of the game, and only one of those races was displayed. The commission is saying if you’re basing the game off two races, you have to show both races,” he said. Still, Cook believes his vendor will find a solution the commission can approve within the next few weeks, so he can reopen locations and rehire employees.
Wyoming Horse Racing uses a different machine vendor than Wyoming Downs. As a result, Wyoming Horse Racing’s Eugene Joyce said, “On a month-to-month basis, we’re actually doing a little better than we did prior to us shutting down, so we’re satisfied with the product and the customers have responded well to it.” He added, “It’s important to get it right, that any new game themes comply 100 percent with all the rules, regulations and statutes here in the state of Wyoming, and it is incumbent on new vendors to make sure they do that.”
