
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 2, 1991                   TAG: 9102020302
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Landmark News Service
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

RACE TRACK BETTING BILL ADVANCES TO SENATE

The House of Delegates, responding to arm-twisting by horse-racing proponents, voted 51-34 Friday to send the Senate a bill that would allow a potential Virginia race track to offer betting on live televised races from other states.

The vote came several hours after the same lawmakers voted 49-45 to defeat the "simulcasting" legislation.

Proponents say the bill would make it more likely that a Virginia race track would be built by enabling it to accept bets on a wider variety of races.

However, racing-industry legislation that would have gone further, permitting a half-dozen off-track betting "parlors" around the state, garnered so little support that no one sponsored a bill.

In other action Friday, the delegates defeated, on a non-recorded vote, a bill that would have barred the death penalty for convicts 16 years old or younger.

Del. Samuel Glasscock, D-Suffolk, the bill's sponsor, downplayed election-year fears about opposing the death penalty in analyzing the defeat. "Every year's an election year on an issue like that."

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