In Off-Track Bill, West Side Isn’t Playing Fair

Not everyone in Eastern Washington likes horse racing.

Not everyone in the region thinks betting on horses is a good way to spend an evening.

Still, people who live on this side of the Cascades need to pay attention to what is happening to Playfair Race Course in the Washington state Legislature this year.

The plight of Playfair provides another disturbing example of how West Side politics, money and power are used to enhance the Puget Sound side of the state, and shaft Eastern Washington in the process.

Since the 1930s, Playfair has been a landmark that distinguishes Spokane from other cities in the state.

Playfair has been a reason to visit Spokane, a reason Eastern Washington has a thriving horse-breeding industry, a reason to think Spokane indeed is a second city to Seattle.

But the old formulas and assumptions that governed horse racing, and politics, in Washington state are changing fast.

The closure of Longacres in 1992, the explosive growth of casino gambling on Indian reservations and the proliferation of national gaming technology have created new dynamics in horse racing.

Playfair is trying to adapt.

The current operators of the track want to hold on to live, Spokane-based horseracing. They think they have a way to do it if Playfair can gain a fraction of the statewide gambling market by having fans outside our region bet on Playfair races.

“Today, satellite wagering is where a track makes its money,” said Kim Rich, director of administration and comptroller for Playfair.”

In recent years Playfair has been able to make some progress in getting West Side wagers on Playfair races. The state currently has 28 off-track sites where Playfair races are being broadcast via satellite and where millions of dollars have been wagered on Playfair races.

Last year, the Playfair races beamed into Puget Sound off-track betting parlors accounted for almost 90 percent of the track’s total off-track betting.

The future of Playfair depends on its ability to get even more off-track betting from the Puget Sound, and in time, more off-track betting from around the country.

Since 1992, pari-mutuel betting in Washington state has shrunk by nearly $100 million, to a total of $144 million last year. Clearly, Playfair needs help from the Legislature to increase its access to statewide off-track betting sites and its access to national racing fans.

A few days ago, the Legislature took up a bill designed to benefit Washington horse tracks.

On Friday, the bill passed the Senate, 33-16.

But it wasn’t a bill designed to help Playfair.

To the contrary, Senate Bill 5762 was designed primarily to help Emerald Downs, the new track south of Seattle.

As things now stand, the bill only makes the future extremely dark for Playfair and underscores the leverage West Side interests now have to feather their nests at the expense of anyone else.

Here is why. The bill that passed the Senate says no off-track betting parlors within 60 miles of Emerald Downs can offer national simulcast horse races when Emerald Downs is running its horses.

This means the people who last year generated 90 percent of Playfair’s off-track revenue won’t have national races available in their off-track parlors.

Instead, they will have to go to Emerald Downs to bet on the national races. Oh, and by the way, they can wager on Emerald Downs races, too.

SB5762 also says tracks that run live horses can only bring in one other outside set of races.

The result? Emerald Downs likely will run its own horses and bring in a big out-of-state card of races. It has no reason to even bother with bringing Playfair races into its facility.

Playfair will be able to bring in simulcast racing here in Spokane and will be able to market its races to national audiences under the bill.

But the critical West Side fans of racing, who had been betting in off-track parlors on Playfair races, are being guided to Emerald Downs at the same time Playfair is being frozen out.

Last week, Emerald Downs added insult to these injuries in its contract proposal with Playfair. The West Side track asked whether Playfair would be willing to broadcast Emerald Downs races for only .5percent of the revenue generated at the Auburn track. Meanwhile, Emerald Downs suggested it would like 11 percent of any revenue generated at its track by Playfair races it broadcasts.

“We’re not going to sign it,” said Playfair’s Rich.

Instead, the Playfair management this week is going to push for some amendments to the racing bill in the House.

“If we can’t get them, we would be better off if the bill dies,” Rich said.

This is a sad state of political affairs.

It isn’t just a problem with horse racing.

Once, there was a quaint notion in state politics that when it came to higher education expenditures, capital building projects and transportation, Eastern Washington would get a piece of the pie.

Now, the guiding principle is to keep the pie securely glued to plates west of the Cascades. , DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on Perspective.