The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

March 7, 2013

W.Va. casinos seek break from taxes, racing

By Lawrence Messina Associated Press

CHARLESTON — As West Virginia’s four racetrack casinos face growing competition from across the state’s borders, several lawmakers introduced a measure Wednesday that would slash the taxes and fees they pay by an estimated $14 million a year and allow them to scale back racing.

And while the casinos aren’t seeking to end racing — West Virginia first legalized other forms of gambling at these sites to support the racing industry — they also need greater control of their costs, said John Cavacini, lobbyist and president of the state Racing Association.

“If a racetrack is losing money on racing, it has to consider a reduction of racing days and the viability of live racing,” Cavacini said Wednesday. “It’s purely an economical, business model concept of the operation.”

Groups representing racing workers at the state’s horse tracks did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Five Democratic senators sponsored the measure, including two whose district includes the Northern Panhandle casinos. It would cut the annual fee that each casino now pays to host table games such as craps and roulette by more than half, from $2.5 million to $1 million.

The fees benefit senior citizen programs, and the bill proposes offsetting the resulting annual $6 million revenue loss by dipping into the purse fund for race winners by that amount.

The state’s share of table game proceeds would drop from 35 percent of gross receipts to 25 percent. This tax on table games reaped $78.1 million during the last budget year, and the proposed rate change would have reduced that amount by $7.8 million.

The bill pares down the minimum number of live racing days at all four tracks from 200 to 150.  Actual racing days ranged from 210 days at the Northern Panhandle’s Mountaineer Casino Racetrack & Resort to 311 days at the Mardi Gras Casino & Resort in Kanawha County in 2011, the latest year for which figures were available from the West Virginia Racing Commission. The measure would also allow each casino to set the number of races per day, a power now wielded by the Racing Commission.

Mountaineer and the Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in the Eastern Panhandle offer horse racing, while greyhounds race at Mardi Gras and Wheeling Island Casino & Resort in the Northern Panhandle.

Cavacini counted 14 competing gambling facilities that have opened in border states over the past four years. They include two racetrack casinos in Pittsburgh, while Ohio has opened slot machine rooms at seven racetracks as well as four stand-alone casinos.  Maryland, meanwhile, has allowed slot machines since 2010 and on Wednesday granted a license allowing its first casino to offer table games since voters approved that expansion in November.

A majority of gamblers at West Virginia’s casinos hail from other states. Even Mardi Gras, which unlike the other sites is not in a border county, relies on other states for two-thirds of its patrons. But figures presented earlier this week by the Lottery Commission, which oversees all casino gambling except race wagering, show that the in-state share of gamblers is creeping upward for at least two of the casinos.

Cavacini cited how the casinos provided $430 million in revenues to state, county and municipal government during the last budget, and employ 4,000 people on the non-racing side of operations.

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