Acadia to settle betting issue

Voters will decide Saturday whether to allow off-track parlors

By KEVIN BLANCHARD

Acadiana bureau

Voters in Acadia Parish will go to the polls Saturday to decide whether to allow off-track betting parlors in their parish.
Acadia is one of four Acadiana parishes with elections this weekend.

Should the betting measure pass, Evangeline Downs plans to open an off-track betting parlor in downtown Rayne, Evangeline Downs attorney Allen Bares said.

Bares said management has pledged to have no more than 50 video poker machines at the new facility -- though state law sets a limit on how many machines an off-track betting facility can operate.

Bares said the 50 machine limit is a "function of supply and demand."

Roland Boudreaux, owner of Frog City Travel Plaza, has fought the proposal. Frog City has about 38 of the 400 video poker machines in the parish, Boudreaux said.

There's no more room for more machines, Boudreaux said.

"I just don't feel the economy can support that many," Boudreaux said.

Video poker revenues are down across the state and in Acadia Parish, where revenues have dropped about $4 million in the last year, Boudreaux said.

Meanwhile, the rules that govern off-track betting facilities aren't as strict as those that govern truck stop video poker casinos, Boudreaux said.

Truck stops are required to have a certain lot size and sell a certain amount of gas and food or alcohol, Boudreaux said.

Off-track betting facilities do not have to meet those requirements.

The two facilities are also taxed differently.

Truck stops have to pay 32.5 percent of every dollar played in taxes. Off-track betting parlors only pay 22.5 percent.

However, Bares said, parlors are required to pay another 20 percent to purses for horse races.

While that money doesn't go directly into tax coffers, higher purses draw better horses, which attract more bets -- which are then taxed.

Off-track facilities also pay a 2 percent tax on the amount of money wagered on races, Bares said.

Horsemen at Evangeline Downs also depend on that purse money for their livelihoods, Bares said.

And state law limits off-track betting parlors to two a parish -- and only in parishes that are within a 55-mile radius of the race track, Bares said.

Acadia Parish has nine video poker truck stops.

"They keep building new truck stops," Bares said. "It's not my fault."

Evangeline Downs already operates an off-track facility in Iberia and West Baton Rouge Parish and has plans to open one in St. Martin Parish, Bares said.

Boudreaux said that while profits from Evangeline Downs off-track facilities will go to its corporate headquarters in Iowa, his profits stay in the parish.