Mike Voss slouches into a viewing cubicle at Fairmount Park in Collinsville and waits for starting gates in southwestern Louisiana to swing open on a small desk-mounted TV screen. For all of the 100-plus screens in the clubhouse, Voss is one of only a handful of people at Fairmount on this particular weekday evening, betting on horse races streamed live from eight tracks around the country and one in Australia.
From a betting man’s perspective, the key to more revenue is video slot machines. “They’ve been trying to get them for as long as I can remember,” says Voss. “It’s obviously a necessity for this place to stay open. I don’t know how much longer they can run without them.”
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Forty-one live racing dates are planned at Fairmount this year, between May 1 and September 22. That ties last year for the fewest dates in a season in the track’s 93-year history. Attendance for live races has remained strong, but Fairmount officials have told the Illinois Racing Board that if the racetrack isn’t allowed another revenue stream, such as casino-style gaming machines, the season will have to be halted on July 3. Approving such machines quickly enough to save the season would require passing legislation through a state government that’s notorious for gridlock.
“I think we need to do everything we can to maintain live racing there,” says state representative Jay Hoffman (D-Swansea), who recently sponsored a bill that would allow horse tracks in Illinois to add up to 150 video gaming machines. He calls it a short-term solution that would help keep the track open until a broader gambling bill addressing horse track regulations and a proposed casino in Chicago could gain support.
Fairmount president Brian Zander declined to comment but has said that adding 150 gaming machines could increase purse money by 50 percent, or $2 million.
Combined racetrack/casinos, or “racinos,” have become a lucrative industry in several states, including neighboring Iowa and Indiana. Milton Toby, an author and faculty member at the University of Louisville’s equine industry program, says converting standard race tracks to racinos “can be very effective at shoring up a racetrack in financial trouble.”
But Illinois law restricts other forms of gambling at its three horse tracks. “We’re the only state in the nation that has both casino gaming and horse racing but doesn’t have either slots at the racetrack or revenue sharing from the casinos to help bolster the horse racing industry,” says Hoffman.
Collinsville restaurants, bars, and hotels have been allowed to add up to five gaming machines since 2013. Hoffman says it doesn’t make sense that “the place that for decades has had horse racing is not allowed to bolster the industry by doing the same things that establishments across the street can do.”
One of those establishments is the Trackside Bar & Grill, whose video gaming license application was pending as of March. Nearby, at Steffi’s Bar & Grill, five video slot machines flash in the back of the room, and three TVs stream horse races from around the country (though betting on the races isn’t allowed here). As one regular explains, Collinsville is a horseracing community, with hundreds working at the track: breeders, trainers, jockeys, veterinarians, ticket-takers…
At press time, it was too soon to say whether the Illinois legislature would save the racetrack’s full season. But Fairmount has seen its share of photo finishes over nearly a century of races.
The 2018 season begins May 1, with races typically on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Check out the live racing schedule for Fairmount Park (9301 Collinsville) online. This article was originally published in St. Louis Magazine‘s May 2018 issue.
