Dog track owners who don’t want to be dog track owners
March 25th, 2010 by admin
On Monday, the Las Vegas Sun wrote about the sorry state of the greyhound racing industry in America. (The American Greyhound Track Owners Association is holding their convention this week at Caesars Palace.) Each year attendance drops at the convention, and each year attendance at tracks declines as well.
The article explained that many dog track owners would be happy to be done with live racing: “gaming companies complain about having to subsidize an antiquated sport.” In Florida, rules require tracks to offer a certain number of live races each year as a condition of operating slot machines.
The newspaper spoke to Isadore Havenick, whose family owns the Magic City Casino (formerly Flagler Dog Track) in Miami and the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track. Mr. Havenick said that he would like to focus on slots and poker and reduce the number of races he is required to offer at his family’s tracks. Unfortunately, it’s his wallet, not concerns about the suffering of racing greyhounds, that is his motivation. He admitted, “We lose money on dog racing every day.”
Visit ARFF’s website to learn more about greyhound racing.