By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — The State Board of Canvassers last month approved language for a possible statewide ballot measure that would allow more gaming at the state’s horse racing tracks.

Industry insiders believe that more gaming at horse racing tracks would help the industry compete with the state lottery, American Indian casinos and the three non-Indian casinos in Detroit. It’s assumed that whatever is good for horse racing tracks is good for the horse industry in general and its various satellite businesses. About 600 horses are stabled at each horse racing track during the racing season, which runs from June-October.

“We prefer the word additional gaming rather than expanding gaming,” said Gary Tinkle, executive director of the Michigan Horsemen Benevolent Protective Assoc. (MHBPA). “It’s a petition to allow the tracks to offer additional games. It complies with Proposition 1. These racetracks haven’t been able to offer new products. Nobody can stay in business if you can’t compete.”
Proposition 1, passed as a statewide measure several years ago, imposed a number of requirements for any possible future casinos in the state, including a requirement that new casino gambling venues be approved by the local government where the business would be as well as by voters statewide.

Tinkle complained that the horse racing industry hasn’t been given a fair shake by state officials.

“There seems to be some sort of love affair with the casinos,” Tinkle stated. “The horse racing industry has produced a gain for Michigan for years with no incentives and no tax breaks.”

According to the secretary of state’s notice for the Oct. 14 meeting – at which the language for the measure was approved – the petition would amend the state constitution to allow the Michigan Gaming Control and Revenue Board to issue state casino licenses to up to eight new casinos in Michigan, five of which would be located at horse racetracks that conducted race meetings with pari-mutuel wagering in 2009.

The initiative was put forward by Racing to Save Michigan.
Racing to Save Michigan lists the same address as the Hazel Park Raceway, just north of Detroit. Larry Julian, a former state legislator and a lobbyist for horse breeders in Michigan, said that the group is probably one and the same as those who own the racetrack. Nobody could be reached at the Hazel Park Raceway for confirmation, by press time.

Julian said although he hasn’t been involved in this effort to get a ballot measure approved, he agrees with it in principle.
“We need to find a way to raise revenue for horse racing in Michigan,” he said.

The state legislature could decide to approve the measure for next year’s ballot, which would require a two-thirds vote in favor; otherwise, the measure’s sponsors would have to gather close to 500,000 signatures by a set deadline.

“We need somebody to introduce it into the legislature, which no one has done,” Julian said.

Advocates for more gaming at horse racing tracks say that a signature drive for a ballot measure would also require an expensive campaign to counter a campaign against the measure put on by already established casinos. “That’s quite a costly effort to take on. It only makes sense to put it on the ballot, and let the people decide,” Tinkle said.