Rep. Christy Perry, R-Nampa, is presenting HB 279, the bill to create a new state Gaming Commission to oversee horse racing, the state lottery and Indian gaming, to the House State Affairs Committee this morning. “All of these types of gaming have undergone a revolution of sorts,” she said. “Our job as legislators is to keep current our statutes ... in this ever-changing environment.”

Perry said there’s now a dispute between the horse racing industry and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, which has proposed repealing the 2013 law that authorized betting on “historical horse racing,” which has led to slot machine-like “instant racing” machines installed at Idaho racetracks. “The Legislature is not the mechanism to be used to settle disputes, however in the absence of a commission to handle these disputes this is where the fights end up being brought,” Perry said. “I believe that this gaming commission is actually a much better solution than some that have been proposed in trying to figure out what to do with this current dispute.”

Perry said her bill, in its definitions of what the new commission would oversee, lists “historical horse race – we also put ‘or instant racing’ because it has become known by that name as well.”