The Arizona Republic
When the horses reach the gate Saturday for the Preakness Stakes, there will be only one sure thing: Online gambling sites will handle a lot of the wagering.
For the horse tracks, Internet gambling is both a frustration and a threat.
"It's illegal and not everybody knows that," Turf Paradise General Manager Randy Fozzard said.
Not even everybody in Fozzard's family knows it.
"My son is a student at the University of Arizona," Fozzard said. "He's telling me about playing poker on an online site.
"I told him: 'Hey, don't you know that's illegal.'
"He said: 'You're kidding me.' "
For Fozzard, another potential threat to horse racing is as close as his doorstep.
Under Arizona Sen. John Kyl's Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, it's been illegal since 1997.
According to a Kyl spokesperson, the senator is writing further legislation. However, Scot Montrey said Kyl would not comment until the legislation is introduced.
Meanwhile, it's safe to say that wagering will continue at sites located in the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Canada and elsewhere.
There are an estimated 800 sites that take horse-racing wagers. However, there is a mix of opinion among horse players about the online process.
"If you're a sports bettor, I can see it as being a convenience," Joe Martori said as he played the ponies at the Armadillo Grill, a Phoenix off-track-betting site. "You don't have to go to Las Vegas."
But Martori said horse bettors are a breed apart from the crowd that gambles on the NBA playoffs, the Super Bowl, Major League Baseball and other mainstream sports.
"About four years ago, I had an account," Martori said. "I bet and won on a Florida State football game. But the whole thing lost its appeal.
"There was setting up the account, waiting on the phone. It became a hassle."
Online gambling has been driven in part by the popularity of poker, which is regularly televised and includes players who advertise Internet sites on caps and T-shirts.
The poker explosion has appealed to a younger generation that includes Fozzard's son.
"It has brought younger people to the horses, and some of those people could have been our customers," Fozzard said.
A 25-year-old professional said he has been placing bets on the same site for about four years.
However, he said he never does his horse wagering online, in part because The Racing Channel isn't available in Phoenix.
"You want to see the race," said the man, who did not want to be identified because of possible legal consequences. "But I also like to get to the track itself. I like the whole experience of seeing the horse and the race."
He said about 80 percent of his friends have online accounts.
"That's about 18 people," he said. "But some of them don't like the track. There's a lot of cigarette smoke. A lot of us are ex-athletes and are bothered by that."
But Fozzard says the number of Arizona's online gamblers is big enough to erode Turf Paradise's revenue streams.
He estimates that between $20 million and $30 million have been bet by gamblers, who would usually place their wagers at Turf Paradise.
Some of the wagers are bet over the phone. Although federal law prohibits online betting on sports anywhere in the United States, restricted online and phone wagering on the ponies is legal in 16 states, but illegal in Arizona.
Nonetheless, Fozzard says Youbet, which is based in Oregon, has a lot of Arizona customers. According to figures compiled by Fozzard, Youbet handled $4.1 million in phone bets from Arizona customers.
Youbet reported that it handled $4.2 million nationally in phone wagers for the Kentucky Derby a couple of weeks ago.
Fozzard, who has lobbied for phone accounts to be legalized in Arizona, said Turf Paradise is missing out on as much as $6 million that would come back to the track in taxes.
