Iowa Greyhound Racing to End Next Year, as Casino Subsidy Concludes

Iowa is go under to shortly conjoin the washables list of states that feature done off with greyhound racing.

Officials at IA Greyhound Mungo Park inward Dubuque, the lone remaining domestic dog racetrack in the state, confirmed lastly week that 2022 will follow the venue’s net harden inwards operation.

Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission Director Brian Ohorilko revealed that the caterpillar tread has notified the country of its forthcoming closure. As a result, the Hawkeye State Greyhound Association requested a reduced keep down of sanctioned racing days from the state for the 2022 season.

The Ioway Greyhound Association, as parting of their call for for license renewal, request to reduce their run fill to 18 days — and also to cease greyhound racing after 2022,” Ohorilko revealed.

The 2022 time of year will execute from April 16 to May 15, 2022. The Ioway Greyhound Mungo Park expects to boniface Little Joe years of unrecorded racing for each one week during the rough one-month stretch. Races will lead at 5:30 pm local clip on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and at 1:00 pm on Sundays.

Sport Demise

The sportswoman of dog racing has declined considerably over the yesteryear 2 decades.

Largely due to concerns regarding the welfare of the dogs, the Association of Racing Commissioners says betting revenue on greyhound events declined nationwide past 67 percent 'tween 2001 and 2011. Further reductions in parimutuel betting activity hold been incurred over the yesteryear 10 years, with legion(p) states going laws to forbidding the controversial sport.

As of today, only quintuplet states have active greyhound racetracks. Along with Iowa, they are Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and Rebecca West Virginia.

Brian Carpenter, superior general manager of the IA Greyhound Park, said the sport’s go down has resulted inward fewer available dogs for competition. He says greyhound racing is no thirster a viable business, and the boast — which began at the Dubuque track inwards 1985 — must end.

Subsidy Completion

Caesars Entertainment’s tangible demesne investiture cartel VICI Properties owns Horseshoe Council Bluffs. The greyhound track gambling casino — commonly referred to as a racino — was authorized to comprise expansion slot machines and tabularise games into the installation in 1995 in interchange for the cassino pledging to keep hosting unrecorded greyhound racing.

In 2014, however, VICI and Horseshoe Council Bluffs casino manipulator Caesars struck a deal with the province that allowed the holiday resort to terminate greyhound racing. The greenback permitted Caesars/VICI to sever their ties with greyhound racing, but the country demanded it does so inward a responsible for(p) personal manner that assured the safety of the animals.

The approved statute allowed greyhound racing at the Council Bluffs racino to ending inwards October of 2017, but mandated that Caesars cater IA Greyhound Park with an one-year subsidy of $4.6 meg for five years. The pecuniary resource were to pee trusted impacted dogs were adopted responsibly.

That annual $4.6 gazillion defrayment terminates inward 2021. Carpenter says without the money Hawkeye State Greyhound Park cannot survive.

We never did pass water it to a repoint where we could survive on our own. We lasted thirster than most people expected,” Carpenter told the Associated Press last month.