Gunpowder Chronicle posted on October 3, 2007 6:09 PM | Rating:
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I think this is a question that needs to be asked before we allow one dime to be spent to institute slot machines.
Horse racing -- like any other industry in this country (other than education)-- is subject to market forces. Supply and demand rule the roost in the free market.
Right now, there is a high supply of product (races) and very low demand. Anyone who visits Laurel or Pimlico will realize this. Except for one Saturday in May, the grandstand at Old Hilltop is rarely if ever "sold out". And no race at any of the state's tracks ever rival a NASCAR race.
Looking at the audience for horse racing, you see that the audience is old. Horse racing is not a young person's sport. It hasn't been for a very long time.
Yes, the horse racing industry has a sizeable "trickle down" effect on other agricultural enterprises in Maryland.
But does it justify an expansion of state power further in gambling in Maryland? Let's keep in mind that the odds of winning the 3-digit lottery tonight in Maryland are worse than winning the 3-digit number run by the bookies in Little Italy. Do we want more of that?
To me, the entire slots deal looks like one big shot of corporate welfare. Horse Racing is a dying industry, being propped up by ethically-questionable politicians looking for an easy answer to a difficult question.
The question: what do you do when an industry is dying because it has no market?
Their answer: prop up a dying industry by creating a fake "market" hanging off the industry like a parasite.
It's the standard political response: don't fix the problem, just delay the inevitable until it becomes someone else's problem.