The “dog racing mecca” in Florida will host its final greyhound competitions on Thursday night as the game’s flagship approaches its potential end in America.
After the 15th race on Thursday night at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach, the Sunshine State will be out of the greyhound business forever, leaving only four tracks in three states – West Virginia, Arkansas and Iowa – yet chasing rabbits.
Just over 25 months ago, voters in Florida overwhelmingly passed Amendment 13, banning greyhound racing and issuing what could amount to a national death sentence for US centenary sport.
When voters went to the polls in 2018, Florida had 11 of America’s 17 dog tracks, spread across six states. Earlier this year, tracks in Texas and Alabama closed, leaving only four other states on the market. This will now decrease to three states.
“Florida was the mecca (of dog racing), the base, the largest state with the most leads,” Humane Society Florida director Kate MacFall told NBC News recently, celebrating her state’s role in the decline of the sport. . “Now this industry has withered away.”
Jim Gartland, executive director of the dog racing industry umbrella group, the National Greyhound Association, admitted that he sees a day when greyhounds will no longer run in the United States.
“I hate to say that, I hate to even think about it,” said Gartland. “It may be five years from now, it may take ten years, but it is definitely a possibility.”
Florida’s penultimate runway, Derby Lane in St. Petersburg, closed stores on Sunday.
The state’s final race will be “The Long Run Championship”, a 545-yard race with a $ 10,000 scholarship. The last post hour is set to 11:59 pm EST on Thursday.
“It’s awful. It’s very sad,” said Gartland. “I’ve had people in this industry that I’ve seen cry in the past few months.”
In the late 1980s, there were more than 60 dog tracks operating in the United States, with action in Connecticut, Colorado, Arizona, Wisconsin, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont and New Mexico, according to the association.
“It’s no secret, dog racing has been on the decline for several years,” said Palm Beach Kennel Club President Patrick Rooney Jr., whose family has owned the track since 1969. “Dog racing hasn’t lasted long world.”
Rooney, grandson of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, and nephew of former US ambassador to Ireland, Dan Rooney, said the change of opinion on animal rights put the greyhound race on the fastest road to extinction .
Animal rights activists have long opposed greyhound racing, saying dogs live in tight quarters and suffer from difficult working conditions.
“Anything with an animal component will have a hard time surviving in this society we’re becoming,” said Rooney, theorizing that dog, horse and rodeo races could one day follow the circus path. “We are being more sensitive, whether real or imagined, the feelings of animals and how they are treated.”
After Florida’s ban begins Friday, there will be anti-sport laws in 41 states, according to Christine Dorchak, co-founder of the anti-race group GREY2K.
Not yet satisfied with the sport’s near-coma state, Dorchak said her group is pushing for federal legislation against greyhound racing, which she insists on having bipartisan support.
Even without the work of animal advocates like GRAY2K, the Humane Society and the late singer Doris Day, dog racing has been losing financial results to players for years.
- In Florida, dog trails raised $ 135.9 million in bets in the 2019-20 fiscal year, a 29% drop from the $ 191.5 million bet in the previous 12 months. It was the eighth consecutive year that greyhounds were betting on decline. Florida’s dog tracks raised $ 265 million in bets in 2011-12, almost double the action during the most recent period completed.
- With Florida set to leave the dog racing world, West Virginia is set to become the nation’s top greyhound jurisdiction. Mountaineer State accepted $ 124.8 million in bets on its two race tracks in 2019.
- In Iowa, the state’s only dog race track raised $ 2.3 million in live greyhound and simulcast actions by the end of November this year. This is in pace for the third consecutive year of decline.
- In Arkansas, there was $ 14.2 million in live dog racing bets in 2019, the lowest amount in 10 years of data provided by that state’s Department of Finance and Administration. That 2019 number also marked the third consecutive year of decline.
It is believed that Arkansas and Iowa could soon end the sport.
Operators at Southland Casino Racing in West Memphis, Arkansas have already said they will stop racing on December 31, 2022. An Iowa greyhound industry sunset subsidy in late 2022, which may end racing dogs two years from now the Hawkeye state.
The end of dog racing comes when Americans – at least before the coronavirus – bet more than ever.
U.S. commercial gambling rooms and tribal casinos recorded $ 78.2 billion in gaming revenue in 2019, according to data from the American Gaming Association and the National Indian Gaming Commission. This is compared to $ 60.8 billion in 2009 revenue and $ 32 billion in 1999.
Even so, dog racing operators have failed to profit from this rapidly growing pie in the game’s revenue.
Even state lotteries, based on numbered balls falling into curved tubes, are making a lot of money from the decline in dog racing.
Mega Millions sold $ 2.6 billion in tickets in 45 states, Washington DC and the U.S. Virgin Islands in fiscal 2019-20. It is a monumental jump from the $ 434 million sold in 1996-97, when Mega’s predecessor, The Big Game, had sales of $ 434 million in just six states.
Dog tracks have failed to attract new customers or even find ways to link to other, more profitable ventures, said Brett Abarbanel, research director at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas International Gaming Institute.
She cited the thoroughbred track in Del Mar for her success in combining horse racing with craft beer shows and festivals in creative ways to keep the sport relevant near San Diego.
“Dog racing as a whole has not adapted much to the new entertainment options,” said Abarbanel. “Even compared to horse racing, which faced similar difficulties in attracting new customers, the race tracks have not achieved major changes.”
Unlike football, baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer, where the ball or puck is in constant motion, greyhounds are run at 15-minute intervals – intervals in action that can bore potential dog racing fans, according to the National Greyhound Association’s Gartland.
“The oldest and slowest sports are starting to be phased out, especially baseball,” he said. “Perhaps that is the stigma that greyhound racing also has? It is old. It is over. The time has come.”