The chair of greyhound brotherly love Grey2K USA Worldwide has urged lawmakers inwards MA to forbidding simulcast domestic dog racing “to reward the will of the voters,” local NBC affiliate 22 News reports.
Christine Dorchak told the Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure this week to toast financial backing for an amendment recently added to Massachusetts’ order of payment sports betting account that would remnant the practice.
Massachusetts residents voted to censor unrecorded Canis familiaris racing and betting on races inwards 2008, next a ballot initiative drafted past Dorchak. The live racing forbidding came into essence inwards 2010, but that yr lawmakers created a temporary file name extension for simulcast betting to facilitate safeguard the state’s ailing racetracks and protect jobs.
Simulcasting allows gamblers to wager on races broadcast from elsewhere inwards the US and other countries.
Death of Thoroughbred Racing
The outlook was the tracks would single daytime be granted fully fledged casino licenses, but none of them were. Voters approved gambling casino gaming in 2011, but the only when raceway to benefit was live tackle venue Plainridge Park, which was permitted to undetermined a slots parlor.
Suffolk Downs united forces with Mohegan Sun to press for the sole east Bay State cassino license. But the gaming charge chose Wynn Resorts instead. Many inwards the pureblood racing manufacture matte betrayed past the decision.
Live purebred gymnastic horse racing came to an oddment inwards MA inward June of 2019 when Suffolk Downs ran its finally race. The historic caterpillar track is now earmarked for redevelopment.
But twelvemonth after year, the legislative extensions feature continued, to the highest degree recently inward July 2021. Along with Suffolk Downs and Plainridge Park, greyhound racing simulcasts are ease permitted at Raynham Park, itself a former Canis familiaris track.
“What does that say?” asked Dorchak, as reported by News 22. “That says that the voters hither inwards Bay State voted to not appropriate the racing of greyhounds because it was cruel, but it’s OK if you employment those same cruel practices somewhere else and we can just keep an eye on it. i don’t trust the voters ever so thought that was sledding to happen.”
“And it is against the testament of the voters of Old Colony to financial support and subsidise the mercilessness of Canis familiaris racing, whether it’s here or outside this country,” she added.
Dog Days of Greyhound Racing
Grey2K USA is eager to clutch the moment. Sports betting is in the pipeline inward Massachusetts and could supply unexampled revenue streams for tracks that would allow them to form come out far to a lesser extent moneymaking dog racing simulcasts. Current lawmaking would allow retail sports books at to the lowest degree 2 racetracks.
Meanwhile, live Canis familiaris racing is on its finally legs in the US. It’s currently illegal inward 41 states, piece Arkansas and Hawkeye State be after to discontinue the summercater past the remnant of next year. That would depart just now II remaining tracks inwards the rural area hosting races, both inwards Benjamin West Virginia.
Voters in Florida, formerly the epicentre of greyhound racing inward US, chose to forbidding the athletics at the 2018 ballot.
According to Grey2K USA World, Canis familiaris races answer for for less than 25 percent of the simulcast betting inward Massachusetts, with Equus caballus racing widely favored.