Kill the Racing Commission

he current "horse racing" proposal before local and state regulators is more accurately described as a betting parlor that wants to add slot machines. It bears about as much resemblance to what state lawmakers envisioned as horse racing 10 years ago as a horse does to a Tennessee Oilers linebacker.

To label it horse racing is like calling a casino a food-and-beverage operation.

And for that reason, the application of Penn National Gaming to operate a track and betting parlor in North Memphis should be tabled, and the Tennessee General Assembly should go ahead and let the long-dormant Tennessee Racing Commission expire.

In 1987, the legislature allowed Tennesseans the local option of having parimutuel betting on horse racing. Later that year, Memphis voters approved legalization of parimutuel betting. Although the thoroughbred industry promoted the idea for several years before the bill passed, no thoroughbred tracks have been built in Tennessee because no applicants have been approved.

The closest any proposal has come was commodities broker Charles McVean's hackney ponies with robot jockeys. The Racing Commission rejected that application in a 4-2 vote in 1988.

The swift and spectacular failure of a big thoroughbred track in Birmingham and, a few years later, the legalization of casino gambling in Mississippi changed the way people look at horse racing. You can bet on live horse racing a couple times an hour. You can slide dollars into a slot machine almost constantly.

The only way racing can compete with casinos is by simulcasting races from other tracks in other parts of the country. The Tennessee General Assembly recently modified the parimutuel legislation to allow simulcasting in order to give would-be track operators a better chance.

The proposed Penn National track in Memphis would feature only six weeks of live racing a year. And that would be harness racing, not thoroughbred racing. In harness racing, a horse trots around a track pulling a jockey sitting in a two-wheel buggy. If there has been a hue and cry for such sport in Memphis, it has been awfully well concealed.

But live racing isn't the point, of course. The "track" would merely be a betting parlor the other 10 months of the year. How does this menu stack up with other states that have horse racing? Penn National's own thoroughbred tracks conduct 204 days of live racing each year, its harness track 135 days of live racing. Memphis is clearly seen as OTW (off-track wagering) country, not horse-racing country. Banks of televisions would show races from around the USA. A Penn National spokesman says OTW facilities typically operate from 11 a.m. until one hour after the last track closes in California. Given the two-hour time difference, the Memphis OTW facility would likely be open until after midnight.

A year-round, 13-hours-a-day betting parlor is a far cry from a limited-season, Hot Springs-style thoroughbred track, which is what Memphis voters thought they were approving in 1987. Even McVean's wacky idea involved horses, live racing, grooms, and hay -- none of which are needed for OTW.

Penn National, a public company, is upfront about its intentions. If a Memphis track is approved, it will seek approval of other OTW facilities sans racetracks in other Tennessee counties and link them with its existing properties in other states.

The real potential payoff, however, is slot machines.

Penn National is seeking legislation in Pennsylvania to authorize 3,000 slot machines at each of four facilities in the state.

"While approval of such legislation is uncertain, we believe that gaming devices will allow the Pennsylvania parimutuel industry to remain competitive with surrounding states which offer various forms of gambling," CEO Peter Carlino says in the 1997 annual report. "Slots at our racetracks would provide tens of millions of dollars for educational programs throughout the Commonwealth and the potential for dramatic returns to our shareholders. We are very focused on this new legislation and it remains our single most important goal."

Substitute "Tennessee" for "Pennsylvania" and "Mississippi" for "surrounding states" in the above paragraph and you get the picture.

The Tennessee Constitution prohibits lotteries and, by judicial interpretation, casino gambling. Efforts to change that have failed. Sen. Ward Crutchfield of Chattanooga plans to support a lottery in the next session. Some proceeds would go to fund college scholarships. A lottery-funded scholarship program is supposedly luring Tennesseans from Crutchfield's district into Georgia.

Georgia does not have casinos, nor do two other lottery states that border Tennessee -- Kentucky and Virginia.

It's reasonable to expect that if Penn National gets approval in Tennessee, it will try to change the constitution to permit slots and video gambling.

That is its right. But Memphians have a right, too, to know what they're getting into. If the city council and the legislature want to address the question of gambling in Memphis, then let them do it in a forthright manner. If Memphis is going to have slot machines and/or year-round off-track betting, they should come in through the front door, not under the guise of live horse racing or a scholarship program.

The incorporation law gave Memphis a hard lesson in the surprising implications of seemingly innocuous legislation. Last week a judge ruled it unconstitutional and struck a blow for truth in packaging in the Tennessee General Assembly.

Legislators can strike another blow now. Let the Racing Commission expire. Then if there is enough support, reconstitute it as what it would be, the Tennessee OTW Commission. And let the public know that those involved have every intention of eventually changing that to the Tennessee Gaming Commission.