Good riddance to historical racing (for now)

The high-stakes confrontation that has consumed the Texas Racing Commission for a year and a half finally ended Wednesday — with a final act of high drama.

A 5-4 commission vote withdrew authorization for “historical racing” machines, much like slot machines, at Texas horse and dog tracks. A representative of Comptroller Glenn Hegar broke a 4-4 stalemate that would have left the authorization in place, in turn triggering a legislative provision that would have shut the Texas tracks down at the end of this month.

The comptroller, an ex-officio member of the commission, has not voted previously on historical racing despite several opportunities.

It’s been a long, destructive standoff between top legislators opposed to the expansion of gambling and Texas racing industry leaders who said they were fighting to save the industry and the jobs it supports.

Somebody had to end the standoff, and Hegar did the right thing.

The racing industry should now to take advantage of the one thing it has gained: increased public and legislative awareness of the financial difficulties facing Texas tracks, breeders, trainers and the long list of workers who — at least according to what the industry has said — will soon go out of business or lose their jobs if those difficulties continue.

Historical racing was to be the industry’s savior, machines that take bets on replays of previously run races with all identifying markers of contestants and tracks removed.

The tracks’ take from those machines was to help increase purses on live racing, spreading new dollars around the entire industry.

But it was a terrible political miscalculation. The industry should have known better than to usurp legislative control over anything that looks like expansion of gambling.

Industry leaders argued that there was no expansion, only a new form of pari-mutuel betting already allowed at tracks — and these are not slot machines.

Nice try. Big mistake.

And most unwise of all was making this move just as Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, a legislative veteran and longtime opponent of expanded gambling, was elevated to chair the budget-writing Finance Committee.

The Legislature approved a budget provision allowing the Racing Commission’s administrative funding to be turned off, shutting down the commission and the tracks, if historic racing were not repealed.

The industry should make a good case to the Legislature for good solutions to its problems. Lawmakers will meet again in January.

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 5:49 PM with the headline "Good riddance to historical racing (for now)."