Doug Okuniewicz, general manager of Coeur d’Alene Racing and the Greyhound Park and Event Center in Post Falls – which has 35 “instant racing” betting machines – told the House State Affairs Committee this morning, “We ordered our machines back after the bill was passed. … There’s some lead time. ... During that same period the Racing Commission was deciding which games would be allowed in the state. So ultimately we made our decisions ... later in the process. When that happened, we had spinning reels. We asked ourselves whether that was going to be a problem” with the Idaho Constitution’s ban on electronic imitations of slot machines. “The first stop there is the Racing Commission. The Racing Commission says they’re legal and you can do it. That’s probably all you need, is a state agency saying ‘Go ahead you have permission.’ So we were just doing what we were told we could do.”

Rep. Don Cheatham, R-Post Falls, asked, “Have you changed your machines from Day 1, when you first got ‘em?” Okuniewicz said, “No, we have not changed them. They’re the exact games we ordered.”

Okuniewicz said the Greyhound Park figured that if the Racing Commission said the machines were legal, they must be – and they looked to the tribal gaming machines operated on Indian reservations in Idaho for backup. “Either we’re both OK or we’re both wrong,” he told the lawmakers. “The spinning reels have absolutely nothing to do with the game outcome. They’re simply there for entertainment purposes.” He said, “I don’t believe parimutuel games that have spinning reels are slot machines.”