By Dan Ross
The latest salvo in the fight over the legality of a suite of Racing On Demand slot machine-style pari-mutuel games that were removed from Santa Anita by state Department of Justice (DOJ) law enforcement officers Saturday afternoon was fired Tuesday by the track, which filed a writ of mandate against the DOJ in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
There had been 26 such machines in total operating in the Santa Anita grandstand pavilion since last Thursday. They offered $1 bets and required gamblers to select the first three finishers of three random six-horse previously run races.
The terminals were removed during a very public operation which saw state DOJ personnel wheel the machines out the back of the Santa Anita grandstand on gurneys during racing.
In a “notice of intention to destroy machines and devices” issued to Santa Anita, the DOJ warned the confiscated machines would be destroyed after 30 days unless there's some intervening court action. The 30-day window began the day the notice was posted, which is dated Jan. 17.
If the machines are ultimately destroyed, any money seized in connection with them will be turned over to the treasury of the city or county where they were seized, according to the notice. Santa Anita is in the City of Arcadia.
Issued by the Los Angeles Turf Club, Tuesday's court filing repeats several points Santa Anita officials have made in recent days about the legality of the terminals.
The DOJ, the filing states, “unlawfully seized” the terminals “without warning or warrant,” and have yet to provide “any legal basis or explanation for their warrantless seizure of Petitioner's property, which Respondents have threatened to destroy.”
At the heart of Santa Anita's argument is the three-by-three wager approved by the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) in 2024, which the track says gives them the legal cover to operate these machines, using races that have already been run.
“The 3 X 3 wager, which has already been approved and offered for the past 18 months at Petitioner's California racetrack and also at Del Mar Racetrack, and which continues to be offered today on Santa Anita Park races, is consistent with the principles of pari-mutuel wagering that have guided enforcement of California law permitting wagering on horse racing since 1933. That Petitioner sought to offer the 3 X 3 wager via a self-service tote terminal does not convert an otherwise lawful wager into a criminal act,” the filing states.
Similarly of note, the filing makes the argument that in 2006, the California Office of Legislative Counsel issued a ruling on so-called Instant Racing, which is a form of pari-mutuel wagering on the outcome of concluded races via specialized tote terminals (and therefore has obvious parallels with the modern-day Racing On Demand machines).
The Legislative Counsel's determination is included as an exhibit in the court filing. It found that these Instant Racing machines would be “considered to be predominantly a game of skill, that the outcome is not made unpredictable by the operation of the machine, and, consequently, that the Instant Racing machines are no more slot machines than the machines currently used to place bets on live horse races.
“Additionally, because there is no requirement in the California Constitution that races be live or simultaneous to be considered horse races under subdivision (6) of Section 19 of Article IV, it is our view that the historic races used by the Instant Racing machines would be considered horse races that may be regulated by the Legislature… Accordingly, it is our opinion that the California Constitution permits the Legislature to authorize wagering on historical horse races using Instant Racing machines as described above,” according to Tuesday's court filing, which includes the Legislative Counsel's 2006 determination.
Reached Wednesday, Los Angeles Turf Club senior vice president Scott Daruty explained that the state legislature didn't formally adopt rules around Instant Racing machines at the time, “not because we needed to make betting on concluded races legal, but because there were economic provisions that certain members of the industry wanted spelled out in statute. That legislative effort ended up being dropped.”
Both the state attorney general's office and the CHRB had a long window to render a decision about the legality of the Racing On Demand machines, the filing points out, but had failed to do so.
“Neither the Attorney General's office, nor the CHRB, ever disputed [the track's] written legal analysis or stated that the [track] did not have the legal right to offer the 3X3 wager on concluded races,” the suit states.
Santa Anita seeks several actions, including a “declaration that the 3 X 3 wager on contemporaneous races and on concluded races is legal in California,” along with the return of the terminals and the monies they contained.
When asked how quickly a court ruling could be issued, Daruty said it's hard to predict, but “we would hope it's a very expedited review given the state's threat to destroy our Tote terminals within the next 30 days.”
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