Why is historical Kentucky Horse Racing illegal and what next?

Kentucky Horse Racing is now fighting a battle for survival. No, this time it is not for the pandemic, but Supreme Court. Yes, the Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that the slot-like Horse racing of Kentucky is illegal.

This is a ruling against the $2bn industry. The court anonymously ruled that slot-like historic horse racing in three of the five venues is not pari-mutuel wagering. The court ruled that it is more like a casino game, and Casino is not permitted in Kentucky.

How is it not pari-mutuel?

There are two main mechanisms of betting on horses in the past. The first is like fantasy sports. The players select jockeys and horses from the roster to see who comes at the top. The second one is to pick the order of finish, chosen randomly from enormous databases.

Both the versions are helped with the app and played with machines instead of going to windows.

Now, what if five players are wagering at the five machines in a venue at the same time? The court observed that there is no guarantee that they are all betting on the same race. It is very unlikely; they would be betting on the same race.
However, when it comes to the pari-mutuel race, the pools are all on the same race.

Hence, the historical horse-racing is anything but not pari-mutuel, observed the court.

What next?

There is the only way for horse racing to survive now. The lawmakers need to amend the law and the state constitution.

Senators have already started discussing considering the economic impact. They are talking about many jobs and revenue here.

However, this situation makes one thing very clear about the lawmakers. They are mostly not very clear on the technical terms and thus often end up like this.

It is time for lawmakers to step up the game to keep the revenue flow going.

Source: https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/09/business/everybody-in-the-pool-kentucky-supreme-court-and-instant-racing/

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