Competition only sure bet with racing bill

JAMES JEFFERSON
Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK - Track officials aren't giving odds on the Arkansas Legislature approving their latest attempt to expand gambling in Arkansas, but they see opposition from Mississippi competitors as a sure thing.

A bill before the Legislature would let voters in Hot Springs and West Memphis decide whether they want to expand electronic wagering at pari-mutuel race tracks in their cities.

Since 2000, Oaklawn Park and Southland Greyhound Park have offered Instant Racing, in which bets are placed on previously run races. The games were allowed under the constitutional amendment that authorized pari-mutuel wagering and a 1999 statute that eased the way for the races presented by video.

The local option is the major difference between the bill that passed the Senate last week and one that died in the House two years ago. The 2003 legislation did specify video poker among the games that the tracks could add to their fare of instant racing wagers on previously run races.

The current bill, by Sen. Bob Johnson, D-Morrilton, isn't specific beyond authorizing so-called games of skill in which players exercise some judgment.

Mississippi gambling interests say that vagueness could open the door to video poker, video blackjack and other electronic versions of classic table games that would allow Oaklawn Park thoroughbred track and Southland Greyhound Park to offer virtual casinos in a state where voters have repeatedly rejected the real thing.

Last year, Mississippi interests spent a bundle airing media ads in Arkansas in an effort to block gambling legislation that never materialized as an option for financing public school reforms in a special session on education.

"They clobbered us last time, and they'll probably clobber us this time, too," Oaklawn public relations chief Terry Wallace said.

But this year, they say they just want a piece of any new gambling action that develops.

"The big thing that we want to be sure the legislators understand is that (Johnson's) bill absolutely, without question, allows video poker machines. What they're really getting into is casino-type gaming," said Tom McPherson of Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming Corp., which operates casinos in Mississippi and Louisiana.

"If Arkansas is going to approve casino gaming, we'd like to see it done through a competitive process," McPherson said. "This license is being given to two properties in Arkansas. Most states, when they issue a casino license, have a competitive process where companies come in and say 'Here is what I will bid or build.'"

Oaklawn General Manager Eric Jackson scoffed at Boyd's line.

"I understand why Boyd is saying that, but that's absurd," Jackson said.

"This bill does not specify any game. Which games would be approved would ultimately be decided by the Racing Commission and the courts," he said.

The commission regulates racing in the state. The courts would be called on, in a legal challenge, to give the final word on whether any of the new addition was a game of skill or a game of chance that could not survive Arkansas' constitutional ban against lotteries.

Jackson says he's seen NASCAR racing games, as well as versions of electronic checkers and pictionary, that appear to be games that give players the ability to show some judgment, but he couldn't say whether they would meet constitutional muster in Arkansas.

He did say that Arkansas tracks have a harder time competing with Louisiana tracks that have slot machines and Mississippi casinos that have everything.