PA political heist
 

Gov Wolf announced today he is going to take over $204 million dollars out of the PA RHDF (Race Horse Development Fund). He wants to use it to fund free tuition at the Commonwealths already overpriced colleges.

He will be essentially killing the racing and breeding industry in PA.

Putting 260.000 jobs in peril.

Feels like this has been a long time coming.

Right now 88% of the inflated purse money in PA comes from slots. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Gov. Wolf may want to familiarize himself with how the PA Development Trust was established. It's not available for him to raid. The money isn't Commonwealth tax revenue.

6th District (Bucks County) State Sen. Tommy Tomlinson on ATR tomorrow at 11a to explain things to the Governor.

You figure the Governor is a regular listener?

His people..

I'll take the under.

That was my understanding Steve. A raid on the fund by ex-gov Tom Corbett almost ruined the PA horse industry.

Smarty Jones actually tilted the state voters towards slots and it was linked to horse racing and all the associated businesses.

PA, like other NE states, are going bankrupt by overspending. Gambling is the answer for them. PA has legalized Sports Betting with no input to racing.

Without slots input to racing, there would be no racing. But without racing's input to slots, there would be no gambling.

260? or 260,000?

If an act of the Legislature provided those protections, I don’t see any reason why an additional act of the Legislature (in the form of a budget bill) couldn’t eliminate those protections. This is how it works in NJ - there are a bunch of statutory protections placed on things and the State budget supersedes those statutes (often allowing the Governor to raid various dedicated funds.)

I’m not sure if PA is the same...but this all derives from the general principle that a Legislature cannot bind future Legislatures. Generally the only way to do that is to amend the State Constitution. Of course, with all that, Wolf would still need the Legislature to approve his budget and it’s not clear he has support for this to pass.

For PA racing’s sake, I hope I’m wrong.

And with that, I’ll stop nerding out about the legislative budget process.

The number fluctuates, but it's around 20,000 directly employed jobs. Then there's indirect and seaonal employment. But it's $1.6 billion in annual, statewide economic impact and $68 million in annual tax revenue to the state from all horse racing and breeding.

Many might not know that Pennsylvania is the Kentucky of harness breeding with 1,300 standardbred foals dropped in 2019 (plus 700 thoroughbreds).

I don’t want to see anyone lose their jobs but how can this business model be sustained? If handle is only supporting 12% of the purses, it feels like a lot of people are making a lot of money in handouts.

Couple that with how these inflated purses water down racing in the region and it doesn’t seem like a good thing to continue down this path.

I live 55 miles from Parx I follow racing daily for 30 years I bet albeit way less now than in past. I think I watch about 5 races a year from Parx, I simply can not see a scenario save them reducing the rake dramatically that would get me to give a crap

Parx is 20-25 minutes from my work and from my house and I’ve been there maybe 2 times in the last 3 years.

A lot of that is due to online wagering but Parx doesn’t have much to physically draw me there. As far as wagering on Parx races, if I’m not at the track then I almost never even look at the card for Parx.

Although I might add, I never realized until now that I could make it to Parx, place a bet, watch a race, and get back to work all during my lunch break. Something to ponder.

Sorry. We had it pegged at 26,000 when we were trying to get the legislation through. We thought it could be 75,000 with partial incomes.

Should have Brian Sanfratello on.

This.

I agree with Dahoss. The handle is awful. It could be much better.

The Horsemen's Association at PARX is the worst. If the trainers and owners weren't under the heavy thumb of these people they could really say what they think. They are lawyers, drive big Mercedes and do 30% takeout.

Plus I'm sick of Tommy Tomlinson. He is no friend of Horse Racing. Never has been. He was against the bill to do casino until somebody gave him money. He was against it until he got a bag of cash. Tommy is a career politician. He's not a political servant, he's a Tommy servant. This is a personal business with him. Probably made $40,000 a year as a Senator and now probably worth $10 mil, go figure.

This whole commonwealth is corrupt. Crooked as a bent stick.

I love the horse people in PA. They are the best. The corrupt govenrment are the worst and should be exposed.

Steve thanks for following this. This one gives me heartburn. I am worried.

Parx has always been consistently adversarial to the sport - never advertising the track, just the casino. It's been maddening.

They are the track closest to my home so I want to see them succeed, in spite of their management. I realize of course this is coming from the state, but I am sure Parx is giving a wink and a nod, at some level, that as long as they can keep the Casino running, and not pay anything further for the support of racing, they'd be happy.

Oh - and some articles online are still saying racing is "subsidized" - what a joke. Racing is the reason any casino gambling was permitted as you well know.

Agree with Joey.

I'm worn out finding and shipping masks.

Racing just has to come to grips with the fact that the entitlements that have been received through government regulation (casino revenue) can and will indeed change. Bolstering purses is great to compete for thoroughbreds during racing seasons, but if you are not increasing your own handle (on/off track), what does it matter?

NYRA is far out in front of everyone on this front crushing both the Stronach and Twin Spires groups. Combining their NYRABets wagering platform with a national video outlet (FS/2, MSG+) for all of their races, they have created a platform where they benefit from on-track at Saratoga, mitigate attendance issues on slow days at Belmont and Aqueduct, and generate their own handle year round. The on-track and in-home experiences, where appropriate, are improved immeasurably.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has Parx, Penn National, Presque Isle, Harrah's Chester, Pocono Downs, and the Meadows. Rebuilding the breeding system has been important and the harness racing breeding is equally important. However, what has been done to bolster the customer experience?

I agree Scott. There is much more to be done and not great cooperation from the tracks. The casino is the focus.

I think Oaklawn is showing you can have both a casino and racetrack and have them mutually benefit each other.