Historical Horse Race Machines Ruled Unlawful in Louisiana

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00:00 (upbeat music)

00:03 - Let's start off with obviously a story

00:05 that hits very home to you,

00:07 which is the fact that horse racing machines

00:10 could end up being extinct pretty soon.

00:13 I mean, if you can't have these things in Churchill Downs,

00:15 you probably can't have them anywhere, can you?

00:18 - Yeah, thanks for having me on again, Craig.

00:21 Yeah, so these historical horse racing machines

00:23 were recently ruled unconstitutional in Louisiana.

00:29 A couple of states where these are legal.

00:33 This was a little bit of an interesting story

00:35 last week out of Louisiana,

00:37 where the judge, like I said,

00:38 ruled that these machines are unconstitutional.

00:41 And the reason was, well, I guess first,

00:44 what are these HHR machines?

00:46 They're essentially slot machines

00:49 that use past horse races to kind of wager with.

00:56 To the unsuspecting eye, basically a slot machine,

01:00 but they fall in a lot of states under paramutual law,

01:03 which means that they're taxed

01:05 and regulated a bit differently

01:07 than your typical slot machine.

01:10 So in Louisiana, a group of voters were arguing

01:15 that they should be illegal,

01:18 saying that they're not covered

01:21 under the state's constitution,

01:24 considering these HHR machines as a new form of gambling,

01:28 which would have required all of the parishes or counties,

01:32 if you will, in Louisiana to hold a local vote

01:36 whether or not to authorize these machines,

01:39 much like they did with sports betting a couple of years ago.

01:44 With sports betting, each parish had to vote to legalize it.

01:48 And as we know, sports betting is legal in Louisiana,

01:52 in the vast majority of parishes,

01:55 but there are a few where you can't legally wager on sports.

02:00 So a group of voters got together

02:04 and kind of petitioned a judge who agreed

02:07 that these machines are unconstitutional.

02:11 Now, where might this go from here?

02:14 Still remains to be seen.

02:16 I called around to a couple of the off-track betting parlors

02:22 where these HHR machines are active in Louisiana.

02:26 Several of those are owned

02:28 by Churchill Downs Incorporated, CDI.

02:31 And the staff there told me that they were still in use,

02:34 even though the ruling said

02:37 that they needed to be turned off immediately.

02:39 I imagine some appeals will be coming sooner

02:43 rather than later.

02:45 So still remains to be seen what the next steps here are.

02:48 But just to kind of put a bow on this,

02:51 just specific to Louisiana,

02:53 like you said, in Kentucky,

02:55 the HHR machines are a huge business.

02:58 They help fund the overall horse racing ecosystem there

03:03 and quite popular with the public,

03:07 quite popular with lawmakers.

03:10 So if I had to venture a guess,

03:13 I doubt we see any movement elsewhere

03:17 outside of Louisiana on this topic,

03:21 but we'll see how this goes in Louisiana

03:25 with those HHR machines being ruled unconstitutional

03:28 a couple of weeks ago,

03:30 but we'll see where it goes from there.

03:32 (upbeat music)

03:35 (upbeat music)

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