I don’t know why, but I find this NYT story sort of mordantly amusing.
Basically, greyhound racing tracks in places like Iowa and Florida saw business declining. So they wanted to add things like slot machines and poker tables, in addition to greyhound races. The states said, “Sure! But the money from slots and poker has to go to subsidizing greyhound racing!”
Well, now greyhound racing is all but dead, and the track owners want to shut down the races while keeping their slots and poker. What makes this kind of amusing is that the track owners are aligning themselves with animal rights groups who think greyhound racing is cruel, and the greyhound racers resent being used as a tool for the expansion of unrelated forms of gambling.
How bad have things gotten?
That’s an average of $159 (roughly) per person. And I do wonder what day of the week that was; it seems odd that the NYT wouldn’t mention if it was a weekend or weekday, or how many races Bluffs Run has daily.