Doug Okuniewicz, manager of the Greyhound Park Event Center in Post Falls, told lawmakers this morning at the “instant racing” repeal hearing, “These are not slot machines. … They’re using pari-mutuel pools, the players are playing against each other.” He said, “A repeal is awfully Draconian. … That hole can’t be filled in any other way. There are ways to address games and those sorts of things without going to the extent of repealing the bill. We don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. … Without it, the industry is just not going to make it. Historical racing is ... well on the way to helping live racing in Idaho be great.”

He said if lawmakers passed the repeal bill, it is “Certainly going to result in us closing our doors.” The Greyhound Park Event Center installed the instant racing betting machines last year; it’s never had live horse racing, but is the former site of now-banned live dog racing in Idaho. Since live dog racing ended, the center has been “grandfathered in” under state law to conduct betting on simulcasts of races conducted elsewhere.