2002 - Harness Tracks of America, Inc.

HARNESS TRACKS OF AMERICA
Executive Newsletter
A daily fax and e-mail report on racing and gaming developments in North America and beyond
Stanley F. Bergstein, Editor
THE GOVERNOR SPEAKS OUT
The Arizona Supreme Court slammed the door on
the state’s racetracks yesterday, denying an injunction
request by the state’s horse and dog tracks
to stop Gov. Jane Hull from signing gambling compacts
with Indian tribes. It was the third time in
three days that the tracks lost in court, and this
time the governor, with a mandate from voters,
took to the press to give her response. In a long
open letter titled “My Turn” in The Arizona Republic,
the state’s biggest newspaper, she thanked
voters for supporting Proposition 202, which denied
the tracks slots, and gave her rationale for
her actions. “I spent my first years in Arizona as
a teacher on an Indian reservation,” the governor
wrote, “and saw poverty so pervasive that the
memory lingers even now. In time, my family grew
and prospered and Arizona grew and prospered.
However, prosperity didn’t extend to our Indian
reservations.” Gov. Hull went on to say she was
skeptical at first that gaming would improve Indian
lives, but she came to see that gaming “had
made a real difference to thousands of tribal members
in Arizona.” For that reason, she said, she
began to renegotiate compacts. She accused the
state’s tracks of “a campaign of misinformation
and litigation,” and said millions were spent to create
confusion at the ballot box. She concluded by
saying that the voters of Arizona had spoken, and
she intended to sign new compacts before the end
of her term. “It is time,” the governor wrote, “to
put this issue to bed.”
COMMISSIONERS SPEAK, TOO
While Arizona’s governor spoke out, deposed racing
commissioners in neighboring New Mexico had
their say too. Three of them, fired by Gov. Gary
Johnson to keep them from voting on a new track
on the Texas border, wrote letters calling
their dismissal “New Mexico politics at
its worst.”
November 27, 2002
Part of the controversy is the issue of R. D.
Hubbard’s application for the new license, in view
of his problems that led to him losing his license to
operate in Indiana in the now famous case of importing
prostitutes from Las Vegas. The New
Mexico Gaming Control Board’s attorney had recommended
Hubbard’s license not be renewed, but
the commission chose to vote on it despite that
fact, and the governor ended that prospect by firing
three of them, leaving the commission without
a quorum to act. The incoming governor, Bill
Richardson, favors a track in Hobbs, and the betting
in New Mexico is that Hubbard will be the
man who gets to build it.
WINNING IS THE GAME, FOLKS
First the Greektown Casino in Detroit, and now
Suffolk Downs in Boston. The Detroit casino
barred nine gamblers who were winning too much
at video poker, and tried to rationalize their decision
by saying it would open up machine opportunities
for others who weren’t winning. Suffolk
Downs in Boston went to the Massachusetts racing
commission and asked to conduct win betting
only on state-bred races, and got it. The move
came after the track had a $24,000 minus pool after
a plunger bet $310,000 to show on a state-bred
race for juvenile fillies. Instead of going to the
legislature to get the $2.20 minimum payoff in
Massachusetts changed to $2.10, Suffolk asked
for the “win only” provision, and used it in the
Massachusetts Oaks, where the 3-10 favorite
wound up second in a six-horse field, beaten 12
lengths by a filly owned by a 14-year-old high
school student. The Boston Herald had fun with
the story, and in Detroit Free Press columnist Brian
Dickerson took Greektown apart, saying its
publicist’s claim that the casino “loves winners” is
like saying Augusta National “values diversity.”
We’re off for Thanksgiving, but will be back
with more Friday. Have a great holiday.