North Carolina weighs long-shot plan to build new racetracks

It is a long shot, but there is talk in the North Carolina legislature about establishing a racing commission there with a long-term goal of building horse tracks in the state.

The resurrection of a dormant proposal to establish live racing came after legal sports gambling was signed into law this month by Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper. Advance-depositing wagering on horse races was part of what was authorized for a rollout in the first half of next year.

According to the Winston-Salem Journal, momentum from the sports-gambling law resuscitated a two-year-old proposal by state senator Paul Lowe (D-Forsyth) to create a racing commission to “regulate horse racing, promote breeding and training of horses and the further development of the equine industry in this state ... and develop a long-term plan for racing in North Carolina to determine the appropriate location and number of tracks to be built in this state so as to position any major track and its purse structure in the upper segment of good quality tracks while creating a strong breeding, foaling and training structure throughout the state.”

Lowe’s proposal, which he calls the North Carolina Derby Act, never got out of committee after a first reading in April 2021. Now, though, Lowe was quoted by the Journal as saying, “there’s discussion about horse racing in North Carolina” thanks to the legalizing of sports betting and, specifically, ADWs in the state.

“Commercial Thoroughbred racing would present a great opportunity for North Carolina’s economic growth,” Lowe told the Journal, “and it could generate extra gaming and tax revenue for the state budget.”

One gambling-industry analyst said, however, the state government’s decision to remove historic horse-racing machines from the new gambling law made the prospects of building a racetrack in North Carolina less attractive.

“Historic horse racing accounts for more than $10 billion in wagering annually across five states, and the racing industry has shown a major resurgence in those jurisdictions,” BetCarolina.com’s Steve Bittenbinder told the Journal. “Had historic horse racing survived (in the new gambling law), you would’ve had a better chance of having a live racing product in North Carolina. There’s still a chance, but it’s less than 50 percent that it happens now, because you need that supplemental revenue.”

Betting on racing, per se, has been legal in North Carolina since 2019 but only at three existing casinos operated by two Native American tribes. Any ADW operator wanting to set up shop in the state must pay $1 million for the license to do so.

North Carolina’s horse-racing history dates to the 18th century, but it withered away after the Civil War and with the advent of the automobile, according to research by Jim L. Sumner that was published in 2006 by the state’s library. There have been sporadic renewals of steeplechases, and harness racing had a comeback at the state fair, but there has been no mechanism for live, pari-mutuel wagering.