{"id":99459,"date":"2025-05-14T00:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T00:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/99459\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T00:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T00:47:10","slug":"cdi-threatens-to-pull-out-of-racing-at-fair-grounds-over-recent-court-ruling-on-slots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/99459\/","title":{"rendered":"CDI Threatens to Pull Out of Racing at Fair Grounds over Recent Court Ruling on Slots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 7:09 pm |
\n Back to: Top News<\/a> <\/p>\n

Updated: May 13, 2025 at 7:11 pm<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Fair Grounds<\/strong> | Sarah Andrew<\/p>\n

Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), which in recent seasons has ended racing at such high-profile tracks as Arlington and Calder over alleged profitability issues, on Tuesday threatened to pull out of Fair Grounds over a recent court ruling that bars it from using a certain type of slot machine, saying the ban would cause it to lose money at the New Orleans track and 13 off-track-betting outlets it owns.<\/p>\n

Reporting by Anthony McAuley and Tyler Bridges at NOLA.com first broke the news<\/a>, which emerged out of an \u201cemergency\u201d Louisiana Racing Commission meeting May 13.<\/p>\n

According to the NOLA.com story, a CDI attorney, Ozair Shariff, told the 12 commissioners that the company would not proceed with the 2025-26 season scheduled to run November through March unless the state legislature comes up with a workaround to a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling in March that upheld a lower court’s ruling from 2021 deeming historical horse racing to be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n


\n
\n <\/p>\n

According to NOLA.com, Shariff said the Supreme Court ruling made it impossible for the Kentucky-based gaming corporation to cover the costs of conducting racing at Fair Grounds.<\/p>\n

According to NOLA.com, \u201cthe court determined that HHR constitutes a new form of gaming, distinct from traditional pari-mutuel wagering on live horse races, and therefore requires prior approval from voters in each parish where it would be implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n

NOLA.com reported that Churchill Downs executives stated that the loss of HHR machines eliminated 46% of the firm’s annual revenue and 74% of after-tax profit in Louisiana. The NOLA.com report stated that the annual operation and capital spending for Fair Grounds was $9 million.<\/p>\n

NOLA.com reported that Louis Roussel III, a longtime Louisiana-based racehorse breeder and former owner of Fair Grounds, testified at the meeting that CDI was trying to bully the state and he urged the commission to call its bluff.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon’t let them come here and poor-mouth you,\u201d NOLA.com quoted Roussel as saying. \u201cDo what is right for the horsemen, breeders, and more importantly, the citizens of the state and New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n

NOLA.com reported that \u201cstate legislators have been working to try and find a way to make up for the lost revenue for others affected by the loss of HHR, mainly by expanding an existing form of gambling, video poker.\u201d<\/p>\n

NOLA.com reported that a bill that passed in the Louisiana House on Monday earmarks \u201cthe first $22 million in tax revenue from the additional machines [to] boost purses at the four horse racing tracks in Louisiana,\u201d referring also to Louisiana Downs, Delta Downs and Evangeline Downs.<\/p>\n

Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Copy Article Link<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n This story was posted in Top News<\/a> and tagged CDI<\/a>, Churchill Downs Inc.<\/a>, commission meeting<\/a>, Delta Downs<\/a>, Evangeline Downs<\/a>, Fair Grounds<\/a>, HHR<\/a>, Louis Roussel<\/a>, Louisiana Downs<\/a>, Louisiana House<\/a>, Louisiana Racing<\/a>, Louisiana Racing Commission<\/a>, New Orleans<\/a>, NOLA<\/a>, Off-Track Betting<\/a>, Ozair Shariff<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 7:09 pm | Back to: Top News Updated: May 13, 2025 at 7:11…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[46156,46157,46158,46159,46160,46161,46162,46163,46164,46165,46166,46167,46168,46169,46170,46171,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-99459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-cdi","9":"tag-churchill-downs-inc","10":"tag-commission-meeting","11":"tag-delta-downs","12":"tag-evangeline-downs","13":"tag-fair-grounds","14":"tag-hhr","15":"tag-louis-roussel","16":"tag-louisiana-downs","17":"tag-louisiana-house","18":"tag-louisiana-racing","19":"tag-louisiana-racing-commission","20":"tag-new-orleans","21":"tag-nola","22":"tag-off-track-betting","23":"tag-ozair-shariff","24":"tag-racing","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114503433771597764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}