The Texas Racing Commission recently voted 6-2 to start the process of removing references to historical racing terminals from their rules. Now a 30-day public comment period is in process, and a final vote will be taken in August.
Last year commissioners voted to approve historical racing machines, which resemble slot machines and allow gamblers to bet on past races. However, since taking that action, the agency lost one of two lawsuits and state senators threatened to defund the commission. A portion of its current budget remains at risk. Agency general counsel Mark Fenner said part of the reason for the vote was to clean up the rules. But Mike Lavigne, spokesman for Sam Houston Race Park in Houston, said, “The commissioners are acting under duress.”
Commissioners said they believed the games were just another form of parimutuel betting, which is legal. But last November, an Austin judge ruled the commission did not have the authority to legalize the machines, which Republican state senators previously told the agency, adding the decision to allow the machines should have come through the legislature.
In response to the commission’s action, funding for the agency initially was left out of the Senate budget.
At a Senate committee meeting in February, State Senator Jane Nelson said, “This isn’t about gambling to me. It’s not about horse racing to me. It’s about an agency that’s gone rogue.” At that hearing, Commission Chairman Robert Schmidt apologized to senators who were “offended” by the commission’s actions. Although the devices technically were legal last fall, none was ever approved for use at Texas tracks.
The commission’s budget was eventually restored. But a budget rider withheld a portion of that money, which must be approved by the Legislative Budget Board, which includes Nelson. The rider does not mention historical racing but commissioners were told that the controversy is related.
A few days before the vote to remove references to historical racing from the rules, members of some Texas horse racing associations received an alert asking them to lobby the commission not to drop the rules. “We believe the decision to repeal the historical racing rules is both unnecessary and counterproductive to the longevity of both the Texas horse racing industry and the TRC—the agency that exists to support our industry,” the alert read. Historical race machines at other tracks boost prize money or purses, attracting larger and better fields of horses, which results in more bets and greater revenue for the tracks, racing officials said.
