Churchill Downs Betting Big on Horse Racing Revitalization with Colonial Downs

Churchill Downs Inc. is divulging inside information as to wherefore it believes disbursal nearly $2.5 one million million to gain gambling casino operator Peninsula Pacific Entertainment (P2E) is a sound bet. It for the most part has to fare with the Colonial Downs Racetrack inwards New Kent, Virginia.

Speaking with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Winston Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen says despite Equus caballus racing’s diminution over the past decades, he believes the sport has a permanent place inward the US. He explains that Churchill Downs sees a outstanding chance with Colonial Downs.

I’m the first of all to know that I’m biased, because i really bask it,” Carstanjen said of horse racing. “I opine it has a really shiny future tense as a business organization and … has a station in US society.”

Colonial Downs ceased trading operations inward 2013. Live racing resumed in 2019 after Virginia lawmakers in agreement(p) to legitimate historical horse racing (HHR) terminals. The parimutuel wagering machines mime traditional slots, but their twisting outcomes are based on previously go horse races and associated betting odds — non a random list generator.

Virginia is for Gambling

P2E was piece of the ownership mathematical group that agreed to pass $20 one thousand thousand inward 2018 to gain Colonial Downs and re-start live racing inwards interchange for the HHR privileges.

Virginia’s tapping its feet into gambling included allowing the P2E radical to establish as many as 10 off-track HHR gaming parlors. Six such venues get since opened below the Rosie’s Gaming Emporium brand.

Carstanjen says Duke of Marlborough Downs plans to utilize all 10 HHR location permits by building foursome additional properties. The expanding upon is headlined by The Rose Gaming Resort in Dumfries rough 30 miles due south of the nation’s capital. The $400 trillion resort hotel is on data track to undecided late next year.

Churchill Downs testament also acquire P2E’s developing correspondence with Urban One to potentially build a casino in Richmond, Va.

The VA cap was one of v cities that qualified to deliberate a bingle gambling casino under lawmaking passed inward 2020 — the state’s second expansion of commercial-grade gaming. But capital of Virginia voters rejected Urban One/P2E’s $565 one thousand thousand gambling casino proposition during the 2021 election. Efforts to re-ask city voters are underway.

Carstanjen explained that Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill must learn to a greater extent around the Richmond situation before the fellowship can buoy utter a view on the on-going matter. Virginia’s 2020 gaming bills additionally legalized sports betting, both retail and online. Mobile sportsbooks began operating in ahead of time 2021. Retail sportsbooks are reserved for the forthcoming brick-and-mortar casinos.

Churchill’s $2.485 billion takeover of P2E finally includes ownership positions and/or operating agreements for del Lago Resort & Casino in Waterloo, New York, and Hard John Rock Hotel & Casino in Siouan City, Iowa.

Rejuvenating Racing

Carstanjen is most eager to work unexampled life to Colonial Downs. And that charge will be easier for the companionship that owns and operates the most famous Equus caballus racetrack inward the world.

Churchill Downs’ namesake locus is home to the Bluegrass State Derby. Carstanjen told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Colonial will boniface as many as 50 live racing days a twelvemonth erstwhile it assumes ownership. The Churchill boss also revealed that Colonial Downs could suit the site of a Bluegrass State Derby qualifier inwards the future.

“We really loved what we saw inward Virginia, which is the rebirth of the equid business,” Carstanjen said. “It was historically an of import part of the US [horse racing] scene, but inwards the finally list of decades it hasn’t been.”