Greyhound Racing 4:
Modern Greyhound Racing
By 1930, many dog tracks, especially those in Florida, had acquired unsavory reputations because of their involvement with mobsters. A major problem was that betting had to be done through bookmakers, most of whom already had gangland links.
Parimutuel betting was legalized in Florida in 1932, primarily as a way to bring more revenue to the state during the Great Depression. Under government regulation, many safeguards were established to prevent the fixing of races.
Massachusetts also legalized pari-mutuel betting on greyhound races in 1934 and two major tracks opened there the following year. During the next several years, seven more states legalized betting on the sport. There are now 46 greyhound tracks in 15 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The American Greyhound Track Operators Association (AGTOA), founded by Florida track owners in 1947, became a national organization in 1960. The National Greyhound Association, established in 1906, is responsible for registering racing greyhounds.
The sport reached its peak in 1992, when attendance approached 3.5 million and nearly $3.5 billion was bet on 16,827 races at more than 50 tracks. Since then, revenue has dropped by nearly 50 percent and 13 tracks have closed. Other forms of legalized gambling have been the major problem, but pressure from animal rights groups has also hurt.
Idaho, Maine, North Carolina, Nevada, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington all passed legislative bans on dog racing during the 1990s. Tracks in Iowa, Rhode Island, and West Virginia now subsist primarily on revenues from slot machines. The industry has been pushing for legalized slot machines, video lottery terminals, and other types of gambling at tracks in other states, but so far without success.