Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 25, 1992 TAG: 9202250190
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
OFF-TRACK BETTING BILL PASSED BY SENATE
It's off to the races for off-track betting in Virginia.The Senate voted 22-17 Monday for a bill that would allow betting on televised horse races at six electronic "theaters" around the state.
The House of Delegates already had approved the measure, so it waits only for Gov. Douglas Wilder's signature to become law.
There will be no off-track betting, though, until there is a track built in Virginia. The bill requires any betting theater to be operated by the owner of a licensed Virginia track. Voters approved pari-mutuel betting in a statewide referendum in 1988, but so far no track has been built.
Speculators have been sizing up a site near the waterfront in Portsmouth, as well as locations in Northern Virginia and New Kent County - halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg - and supporters hope off-track betting will spur them along.
A locality would have to hold a referendum before it could build an off-track betting facility, and one senator tried Monday to amend the bill to require a statewide referendum. The effort failed, but provoked the only real debate on the issue.
"Recent events with respect to our lottery have shown that perhaps we're not ready for prime time in Virginia with respect to . . . gambling," said Sen. Edward Holland, D-Arlington.
Another Northern Virginia senator whose area is in the hunt for a track took immediate offense. "The people in Fairfax County," said Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, "are quite capable of deciding what's moral for them. They don't need the people of Arlington to tell them."
"We all know the people of Virginia are moral. It's just that some are more moral than others," Holland retorted.
The so-called satellite betting theaters would show mostly Virginia races, but could televise and take bets on a limited number of out-of-state races.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY HORSE RACING
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.