Still, not enough people make time for this anymore. Or they have too many other things to do. For the bettor, there are other forms of gambling, starting with the Lottery, and soon there will be more. I don't see the slots crowd stepping away from their machines, studying the Racing Form and betting on ponies - or even looking up at a simulcast.
Expecting slots regulars to become track regulars is expecting too much. The slots player prefers a game that neither involves skill nor requires thinking. Playing the ponies well takes a working brain. Not enough people have made a day at the races - other than maybe the Preakness - one of their regular experiences.
So what we'll be doing, by voting to legalize slots, is providing some cash for an industry that has been losing daily customers for years. An expert on gambling, William Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, was pessimistic about horse racing's recovery when I interviewed him last week. He agreed that sending some slots revenue to racing will prop up an industry that would otherwise die off.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just keep it in mind as you consider Question 2.
What Pimlico and Laurel need are major renovations, new leadership and a marketing campaign to appeal to the young and the hip, the same crowd that likes the live action of casinos - not the boring video voodoo of slot parlors. There's an investor on the scene now who's talking this game. Halsey Minor, a technology entrepreneur who made a small fortune when he sold the Internet company he founded, wants to acquire Pimlico and Laurel from Magna Entertainment Corp., and he says he's not interested in the slots that have been proposed for Laurel Park. He called them a "cancer" at an anti-slots news conference last week.
Minor also was quoted on a thoroughbred breeder's blog pledging to give both tracks a face-lift - of about $90 million - and to run them better than Magna does. It's nice to hear this kind of talk: Make Laurel and Pimlico classier places, and people from all over might start to regard them as entertainment destinations. They might even become family-friendly places.
James Burger, Baltimore photographer and such a racetrack booster he should be state commissioner, has long advocated free parking, free admission, free pony rides on the infields for the kids, Friday night racing and concerts, anything to get people into the tracks. We agree that reviving the sport of horse racing in the state of Maryland, by getting more betting customers through the gates, should not be that hard. It just takes leadership, the vision thing and smart, eager marketing.
Oh, and free ice scrapers.
Dan Rodricks can be heard on "Midday" from noon to 2 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays on 88.1 WYPR-FM.
