Gulf Greyhound Park delays application for live race dates

http://galvestondailynews.com/story/247742 
Commission looks to race tracks to recoup money
By Michael A. Smith, Galveston County Daily News - July 31, 2011

LA MARQUE — Gulf Greyhound Park has delayed applying for live race dates in 2012 and part of 2013 as the state racing commission ponders ways to recoup about $1.7 million in annual funding taken from it by the Texas Legislature.

While the commission said it’s too early to know how it will try to recover the money, it’s clear operators at the dog racing track, 1000 FM 2004 in La Marque, expect they will have to pay more to the state in fees and won’t schedule lives races until they know how much.

The issue came to light when Gulf Greyhound Park failed to file an application for live race dates for all of 2012 and the first eight months of 2013 by the commission’s July 15 deadline. That led some industry observers to speculate the park, which like most race tracks has seen hard financial times, was about to drop live racing for a more profitable simulcasting-only format or close altogether.

Gulf Greyhound Park is the only dog track in Texas still offering a full schedule of live racing as tracks nationwide are squeezed by competition from other forms of gambling. The two other licensed dog tracks in Texas — Valley Race Park in Harlingen, and Gulf Coast Racing, in Corpus Christi — have all but abandoned live racing in favor of simulcasting. Of the estimated 632 races planned during 2012 and 2013, 622 will be at Gulf Greyhound Park, 10 at Valley Race Park and none at Gulf Coast Racing, according to the commission.

Sally Briggs, general manager of Gulf Greyhound Park, said the application for live race dates would be filed when the state decided how much more in fees it would charge horse and dog track operators.

The root of the issue is decision by lawmakers during the 82nd Legislature about who would get the money from a phenomenon called “outs” in the racing industry.

An “out” is a winning pari-mutuel betting ticket that goes uncollected by the winner.

Unlikely as it may seem, millions of dollars of winnings go uncollected at Texas horse and dog tracks each year.

From 2006 to 2010, gamblers left $8.4 million in uncollected winnings at the five horse and three dog tracks operating in Texas, an average of about $1.7 million a year.

In the past, the commission had used money from outs to help fund its operations. After Sept. 1, the money will go to the state’s general fund, leaving the commission looking for ways to make up the shortfall.

Even with the outs money, the commission’s revenues were running only about 6 percent ahead of the expenses it incurs regulating live horse and dog racing and pari-mutuel betting in the state, spokesman Bill Childs said.

The commission, which employees about 50 people, spends about $5 million a year licensing and regulating the horse and dog racing industries in Texas, according to its records.

The money is spent on such things as monitoring the health and safety of the dogs and horses, issuing licenses to track employees, ensuring wagering rules are being followed and supervising live races, according to records.

An ad hoc committee of the commission met with industry stake holders July 26 in Austin discuss, among other things, adjustments to the fees track operators and others must pay to the state.

The committee would meet again Aug. 15 and make recommendations, including about fees, to the raceing commission board, Childs said.

“It’s far too early in the process to know how the commssion will make up for that revenue,” Childs said.

In 2006, Gulf Greyhound Park petitioned the state to reduce the number of live races it held, in part because operators were feeling squeezed by fees. At the time, the park was paying live race fees of more than $200,000 a year and was expecting increases that would drive the total of all fees to more than $400,000 a year.