Gulfstream challenges Florida law requiring horse racing to keep slot machines
Gulfstream Park Racing Association has filed a lawsuit arguing that a requirement that the South Florida thoroughbred track conduct races to maintain its lucrative slot-machine operations is an unconstitutional "special law” that "thoroughly undermines” its ability to compete with other parimutuels.
Gulfstream is one of two thoroughbred tracks that still run races in the state. The other, Tampa Bay Downs, is not allowed to offer slot machines.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Leon County circuit court, challenges a 2021 state law that revamped a longstanding requirement that pari-mutuels conduct races or hold jai alai games if they wanted to operate more-lucrative cardrooms and, in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, slot machines. Lawmakers agreed to get rid of the requirement — a move known in the gambling industry as "decoupling” — for harness-racing and quarter-horse tracks and jai alai frontons.
Only thoroughbred tracks were required to continue running races, an exception spurred, at least in part, by the large thoroughbred industry in the Ocala area. Florida voters in 2018 passed a constitutional amendment to end greyhound racing, and former dog tracks are allowed to offer other types of gambling.
Gulfstream’s lawsuit, which names the Florida Gaming Control Commission as a defendant, argues the 2021 law puts the Hallandale Beach track at a competitive disadvantage against other pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade that can offer slots without running races or offering jai alai.
The decoupling law "thoroughly undermines the ability of Gulfstream to compete with other pari-mutuel companies authorized to operate slot machines, subjecting it to irrational, different treatment with its live racing requirement,” the lawsuit said.