A Big Wet Kiss for Racinos

The Globe’s Stan Grossfeld plants exactly that in today’s Globe with a puff piece on Pennsylvania’s experience with racinos.  Unsurprisingly, a declining industry that receives a massive subsidy experiences a bit of resurgence, but the unasked question is why should we be subsidizing horse owners above any number of other worthy recipients.  Also conveniently absent is any reference to the massive profits that the former track owners made when they sold their facilities after purchasing below-market fixed price licenses.

One of the details in the Patrick Administration’s casino plan that we were glad to see is the presence of a competitive bid process (as opposed to granting fixed-price licenses to racetracks, which was floated last year).  Check out our op-ed on the subject for more info.