Slots may be the last hope to pump new life into Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, observers said, following a big drop in wagering last year.
Maryland’s two thoroughbred racetracks posted a brutal 2008 with total wagering, known as “handle,” down 22.5 percent from the year before to $668.1 million from $875.8 million according to numbers released Tuesday by the tracks’ operator, Maryland Jockey Club.
“This was a real disaster,” Bethesda-based investment banker and slots expert Jeff Hooke said. “This particular problem isn’t strictly the Jockey Club’s or Laurel’s, the industry as a whole has seen handle drop. Going to the track is discretionary spending, and in tough economic times, the handle is going to decrease.”
Last year, the two tracks saw an 8 percent decline in total handle. Wagering was down 39 percent at Laurel Park’s fall meet, 17 percent for its winter meet, and 16 percent for Pimlico’s spring meet. The state saw 14 fewer racing days overall in 2008.
Even the year’s premiere event, the Preakness, wasn’t spared. Total wagering for the second jewel of the Triple Crown declined 15.8 percent according to data released earlier this year, and attendance was down 7.5 percent to 112,222.
The Jockey Club said it would apply for a license to operate 4,750 slot machines at Laurel Park. Under the slots referendum approved by voters in September, that number of machines will be placed in Anne Arundel County near Route 295 and Interstate 95.
In a statement, the Jockey Club said Maryland tracks were the “undisputed king” of the mid-Atlantic until slots came to surrounding states in the last decade.
“The passage of the slots referendum gives us hope that we will be able to turn the table in the near future,” Tom Chuckas, Maryland Jockey Club president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. “We want to expand the hospitality, with racing as the key ingredient, and get people interested in coming back to the track.”
The final 2008 numbers come as the Jockey Club’s parent, Canadian company Magna Entertainment Corp., struggles with at least $140 million in debt. The company has taken hundreds of millions in losses on its racetracks around the country.
Hooke said slots alone won’t be enough to reclaim those losses. “They stem the decline, they don’t lead to a reversal.”
