Mar 4, 2008 1:16 pm US/Eastern
Track Owners Show Little Interest In Slots
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) ―
Racing track interests are showing little support for rallying voters to approve a November referendum to legalize slot machine gambling, in part due to a lack of a guarantee the machines will be placed at their tracks.
Scott Borgemenke, executive vice president for racing at Magna Entertainment Corp., a Canadian company that owns Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, said Monday that his company has not decided whether to contribute to a pro-slots campaign being led by former Maryland Budget Secretary Frederick W. Puddester.
Laurel could be granted slots if the referendum passes, but the Magna executive says they are not guaranteed, a situation the company views as less than ideal.
"We're very supportive of our horsemen. We know slots will help the purses," Borgemenke said. "We'll look at what the slots will do as far as Laurel's and Pimlico's business plans."
Borgemenke told The (Baltimore) Sun that he and Magna's lobbyist would like to meet with Puddester, a senior dean at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who was asked last week by Gov. Martin O'Malley to chair the pro-slots group For Maryland, For Our Future.
John Franzone, chairman of the Maryland Racing Commission, said Magna's chairman and chief executive, Frank Stronach, has been more definitive, telling him several weeks ago that the company would not contribute "one penny to support the referendum."
"Magna has an issue that Laurel was not named as a specific site," Franzone said. "The issue is not whether it'll go to Laurel Park, but the issue is whether it'll pass."
William Rickman Jr., who owns Ocean Downs near Ocean City, has also said he does not plan to do "heavy lobbying" in support of the referendum.
Rickman said last year that contributing to efforts to pass the measure would be a "waste of money" because slots operators would only be able to retain 33 percent of the profits under the state plan.
Under a deal structured at the time of Magna's acquisition of the Laurel track, former Maryland Jockey Club President Joseph A. De Francis; his sister, Karen, and others would receive 65 percent of Magna's Maryland slots profits during the first five years, 50 percent for the next five years and 40 percent in the following decade, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gerry Evans, a lobbyist for the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's association, said the support of track owners for the slots referendum is needed.
"Without the participation of all the stakeholders, we're going to have a very difficult time," Evans said.
Slots opponents, meanwhile, say they plan to fight vigorously to defeat the referendum.
"We intend to defeat this referendum, and we intend to do so in an intelligent kind of way. And we're going to follow the path that leads us to this goal," said Aaron Meisner, coordinating chairman of Stop Slots Maryland. "And I don't know what is along that path."
Meisner said Stop Slots had not ruled out taking money from out-of-state gambling interests.
In other states, casino companies have heavily bankrolled campaigns for and against gambling. Of $54 million spent on gambling ballot measures in six states in 2006, 89 percent came from gambling companies with a direct stake in the passage or failure of the measures, according to a study by the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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