Dog racing may be gone forever

Tom Fahey reports in the Union Leader that New Hampshire's two dog racing tracks have cancelled plans to hold races this summer:

Paul Kelley, executive director of the state Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission (the former Pari-Mutuel Commission), said commissioners approved applications from both the Lodge at Belmont and Seabrook Greyhound Park.

The state budget bill that will take effect July 1 allows tracks to drop their live racing and continue simulcast wagering. Rockingham Park is also covered by the bill, but continues with its harness racing schedule, Kelley said.

“I think the handwriting was on the wall, since the discussion had gone on for some time. This was not unexpected,” Kelley said.

The decision could be the end of greyhound racing in the state. A third track, in Hinsdale, closed late last year.

Dog racing in New Hampshire has shown the unintended consequences of state regulation. New Hampshire does not allow Off Track Betting, or OTB. However, if you're at a race track, you can place a bet on other races taking place around the country. This simulcast betting allows tracks to take bets year round, even on days when they are not running dogs or horses themselves.

State law had limited simulcast betting to tracks that run 90 days a year. Crowds for horse racing are down, and dog racing is practically non-existent as a spectator sport. But New Hampshire's tracks maintained live events so that they did not lose their simulcasting privileges.

For years, regulating dog racing has cost far more than it generated in state revenue. The tracks also lost money on dog racing, but not as much as they made on simulcasting. Opponents of dog racing have attacked it as both cruel to animals and costly to taxpayers, but coudl not muster the votes either to ban it, or to require the tracks to pay for the full cost of regulation.

Instead, they've succeeded in ending dog racing in New Hampshire, perhaps forever, not by adding regualtions, but by removing one. This budget bill that passed last week removes the 90 day live racing requirement for tracks that already have simulcast betting. It grandfathers the state's three current tracks but does not expand simulcastings to anyone else, preventing you or I from opening an OTB booth. Since the dog tracks in Belmont and Seabrook were only racing dogs in order to meet the 90 day requirement, they've already dropped plans to race dogs this summer.

Regardless of your opinion on dog racing, the old system encouraged races that even the track owners didn't want to run. Greyhounds won't be running in Belmont and Seabrook this summer, and it's not because of a statewide ban on dog racing. It's not even because the state has ended its subsidy of a money-losing venture. It's because lawmakers removed a counterproductive state regulation from the books, and allowed the market to eliminate an efficient business that can no longer support itself.