Illinois Financial Crisis Impacting Racing

The Illinois Racing Board on Tuesday, May 19 approved summertime racing at two state fairs and one county fair amid uncertainty about funding from the cash-strapped state and a wrangle about advance deposit wagering.

Meeting at Fairmount Park in Collinsville, Ill., the board approved harness racing with pari-mutuel wagering at the lllinois State Fair in Springfield and the Du Quoin State Fair in Southern Illinois. The dates have become traditional on the harness circuit and offer relatively substantial purses for harness horsemen.

But a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture said it's unclear how much money will be available for purses this summer since Gov. Bruce Rauner "zeroed out" that portion of the department's budget before presenting his spending plan to the legislature. She said the department hopes some funding will be restored by lawmakers but, if not, purses will be trimmed and the number of races reduced.

Similar cutbacks could impact Thoroughbred racing if the budget eventually enacted does not contain appropriations for purse supplements. Hawthorne Race Course chairman Tim Carey said there was discussion about trimming purses during his track's spring meeting to reflect withholding of state funding but added the decision was made to wait until the legislative session is done.

The session is scheduled to end May 31 amid a scramble for new revenue as the state is billions of dollars short of meeting its spending needs. The racing industry, in that environment, has new hope for approval of a long-sought expansion of Illinois gaming that could benefit tracks. One proposal under discussion would permit not only slot machines at tracks but also table games, giving the tracks a leg up on video poker machines recently installed in bars, fraternal halls, and other establishments around the state.

The IRB also approved a license for the Brown County Fair to run harness racing Aug. 8-9 with pari-mutuel wagering. That licensure opened the way for a subsequent motion to replace Hawthorne as the "third-party" operator with Xpressbet, an advance deposit wagering platform. Xpressbet said it had "irreconcilable differences" with Hawthorne and had entered into an agreement with state harness tracks Balmoral Park and Maywood Park to take over Hawthorne's role.

The harness tracks, however, are operating under bankruptcy protection so they and Xpressbet asked the IRB to include the Brown County Fair as a "contingency" participant that would take over should the harness licenses not survive the outcome of the bankruptcy action.

Several board members objected, saying the small fair is not equipped to play that role and that approving the request would open the door to other fairs, which enjoy less regulation than full-time tracks, to move into pari-mutuel wagering and cut deals with ADW providers.

The Brown County Fair, in Mount Sterling in west-central Illinois, operates under century-old for-profit incorporation papers and has no full-time employees. With a population of just under 7,000, the county is one of the smallest in Illinois.

"God bless them," IRB member Kathy Byrne said of the Brown County Fair. "I'm delighted that they run those races. But they're not made to be an ADW holder."

The board nonetheless approved the switch on a vote of 6-3, with one abstention.