Police remove 26 new gaming machines from Santa Anita
The California government answered Santa Anita’s dare to shut off new gaming machines by confiscating them in a late-afternoon raid Saturday.
Police officers from the state Department of Justice and the city of Arcadia rounded up the 26 terminals only two days after The Stronach Group activated them in a low-key launch.
“The HHR machines at Santa Anita are being shut down,” a source said in a text to Horse Racing Nation on Saturday. “The California DOJ in full force.”
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Following the lead of other states’ historic horse-racing concept, the Racing On Demand machines were activated to collect money for live purses. Their legality always was going to be in dispute. Outside of racing, Indian tribes were given the right to control most gambling in California thanks to a constitutional amendment approved by 64% of voters in March 2000. The tribes have not been open to sharing that right, so they have been the biggest obstacle preventing California tracks from establishing a slot-machine revenue lifeline.
Scott Daruty, Stronach’s senior vice president of the Los Angeles Turf Club, blamed California attorney general Rob Bonta for failing to communicate with track management.
“We stand firmly behind our legal analysis,” Daruty said in a written statement Saturday. “Racing On Demand operates under California’s longstanding pari-mutuel wagering laws using a wager that regulators already approved. Attorney general Bonta received our comprehensive legal analysis nearly a year ago. His office had ample time to raise concerns. They did not. We proceeded on solid legal ground, and since the state is choosing to challenge that now, we’re fully prepared to defend ourselves. We’re confident the law is clear.”
The regulatory approval Daruty mentioned came in April 2024, when the California Horse Racing Board signed off on 3-on-3 wagering. That allows bettors to pick the trifecta in three races with payouts based on how many of the nine horses hitting the board were chosen by each player. That format, which has had a tepid response in live racing, was the basis for the Racing On Demand machines.
It was not clear whether the CHRB was aware that Stronach would use 3-on-3 in its strategy to emulate the historic horse-racing success that has fueled purses in states like Arkansas, Kentucky and Virginia.
Bonta’s media-relations team was asked by HRN for comment Saturday, but it had not responded by Sunday morning.
Put simply, Stronach believes the machines are allowed because they are based on pari-mutuel pools. The tribes and apparently the attorney general believe they are games of chance.
Videos sent by a source to HRN showed armed, uniformed officers using hand dollies to remove the machines from the ground floor of the Santa Anita grandstand. The terminals were loaded into the back of a box truck. The Los Angeles Times said about 15 officers collected the machines and all the cash in them. Daily Racing Form said the roundup came shortly before Saturday’s last of nine live races.
“When you put illegal gambling machines in a liquor store, it gets shut down,” Indian Gaming Association conference chairperson Victor Rocha wrote Sunday on X. “If Santa Anita has illegal machines, they should be out of business. California didn’t sign up for racinos.”