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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tied Committee Vote Kills Off-Track Betting Bill

Legislation that would have opened the door to off-track betting throughout Idaho died Tuesday on a tied committee vote.

The legislation was billed as a compromise between various horse racing interests and a way to help racetracks compete with expanding Indian gaming. It also included language from a bill Rep. Jim Stoicheff wrote that bans greyhound racing in Idaho.

But Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint, whose bill already has passed the House, said the bill wouldn’t really help out horse racing as claimed.

“We’re not going to get more people to the track,” he said. “We’ll get simulcasting in the Coeur d’Alene motel and we’ll get it in Sun Valley and in the major population centers, because that’s where the people are.”

The bill would have:

Eliminated the current rule that racetracks can only have a simulcasting license if they run 90 percent of the number of live horse races they ran in 1989.

Allowed one simulcast license per horse racetrack (there are nine now in Idaho), plus one for the Greyhound Park in Post Falls. But the tracks wouldn’t be required to locate the simulcast operation at the track.

Limit simulcast operations to no more than one per county.

Ban greyhound racing in Idaho immediately, and ban simulcasts of out-of-state dog races as of July 1, 1999. That’s the language from Stoicheff’s bill.

Stan Boyd, a lobbyist representing the Idaho Horse Racing Alliance, said that Indian gaming “has expanded to the point where it has very severely hurt this agricultural industry.”

Simulcasting involves betting on live broadcasts of races.

Stoicheff said the bill’s provisions had nothing to do with his dog-racing bill. “The only reason it’s tacked together is to get support from people that don’t want live dog racing.”

North Idaho members of the committee split. Reps. Stoicheff and Tom Dorr, R- Post Falls, voted to kill the bill. Reps. June Judd, D-St. Maries, and Marvin Vandenberg, D-Coeur d’Alene, favored it.

, DataTimes