Tracks Say "Whoa" to Indian Pacts

By Marcey Brightwell
News 10-ABC
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Mar. 14, 2007) -- The California horseracing industry is urging lawmakers to reject proposed Indian gaming compacts unless horse tracks are given more opportunities to compete for new slot machines.

Horse track operators and workers joined industry officials at the State Capitol Tuesday, asking legislators and the governor to reconsider five pending gaming compacts. The agreements would create the largest expansion of legalized gaming in recent U.S. history by authorizing 22,000 additional slot machines at California Indian casinos.

"They'll only make it worse," said Rod Blonien, attorney for the Los Alamitos Race Track. "It's definitely going to have an impact on people going to the track and wagering," he said.

The horseracing industry said the compacts would give Indian gaming operations an unfair advantage over horse tracks and make it even more difficult for California's horseracing industry to compete with other states.

More than a dozen states permit slot machines or electronic gambling devices at horseracing sites. California horseracing officials said that gives states like New York and Florida an economic advantage because slot revenues help them award larger purse prizes to winning horses.

But Indian gaming officials call that a separate issue.

"I don't think you can link the two," said Patrick Dorinson, spokesperson for the Morongo Band of Mission Indians.

"If tracks want to go to the people or the legislature and try to change the way gaming is done in California, that's within their rights, but we have compacts before the legislature that we have got to get passed," Dorinson said.

The compacts were negotiated with the Schwarzenegger administration but they failed to pass the legislature in 2006. They have been reintroduced this year, and must be approved by lawmakers before they can be ratified and take effect.