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Florida greyhound tracks may go dark soon, but their adjacent poker rooms will live on if similar bills working through the Legislature become law.
Legislation doing away with the requirement that greyhound racing permitholders offer live races to qualify for other licenses, including one to operate poker rooms, passed the House Finance and Tax Committee April 12. Greyhound racing was authorized in the state in 1931.
Gulf Coast greyhound tracks include St. Petersburg's Derby Lane, Tampa Greyhound, the Sarasota Kennel Club, and Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound. Each has a cardroom. There are cardrooms at 14 of the 16 Florida greyhound tracks running races.
Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, sponsored HB 1145, which now goes to the Economic Affairs Committee, its last committee stop. A similar bill in the Senate, SB 1594, is on the April 13 agenda of that body's Finance and Tax Subcommittee.
In the last decade, the total handle fell from $633 million to less than $292 million. A staff analysis of the House bill estimates that the state would lose at least $1.4 million next fiscal year without dog racing.
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