In an attempt to reform the state’s gambling industry, Florida is working on several fronts towards clarifying and changing most of the rules that govern betting in the Sunshine State. One section of attention is on pari-mutuel wagering: the betting that goes on at the state’s race tracks and jai-alai frontons throughout the state. But industry insiders state that the first draft of rules that have been proposed by state regulators just will not work.

Workshop to Hammer Out Wagering Rules

Those rules will ultimately be discussed at a workshop with the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering on October 16, but were first released in a draft form final week. The guidelines are made to eliminate a growing number of questionable methods that are demonstrably outside of what the state intends to enable at such venues. And even though some of these new rules work, those into the industry say that many just reveal that regulators aren’t familiar enough with Florida’s gambling industry to produce such sweeping changes.

‘Some of them seem sensible,’ stated Ken Stirling, executive director of the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and defensive Association. ‘ a number of them have actuallyn’t been thought out extremely well. One or two are pretty silly.’

One of the big areas covered in the draft rules is horse racing regulations designed to eliminate non-standard racing. Many in the industry consent that this is an idea that is good as ‘barrel racing’ and ‘flag-drop’ racing have already been seen by some operators in order to cheaply earn payments that may also allow them to supply card rooms or slot machines alongside those races.

The newest rules would help put a conclusion to such practices. They’d bar ‘the rushing animal to alter program in reaction to virtually any hurdles in the racing surface’ and make sure that jockeys conform to uniform and fat demands that wouldn’t be a problem for legitimate racing operations.

Disagreement Over Acceptable Race Lengths

But the laws don’t stop there, and that is where some feel that the rules go wrong. According to Stirling, some of the guidelines could devastate the race industry if they aren’t changed.

For instance, the new regulations would require that most races are in least six furlongs in length something which might make sense if you’ve only seen the Triple Crown races or the Breeder’s Cup, but which makes no sense for the industry in general.

‘[The rule that] no race must be smaller than…six furlongs…is a killer,’ Stirling said, noting that such races would be too long for two-year-old horses racing in the summer. ‘That’s silly. We run infant races at 4.5 furlongs and we’ve been doing it for a 100 years. I know they’re in Tallahassee, but we now have these things called phones.’

He additionally objected to a rule that states that every battle must have at the very least six horses a guideline that could cause races to be canceled due to minute that is last.

Jai-Alai would additionally be affected by the new regulations. For instance, each location will be required to possess eight players that are certified rotation. This rule comes in response to a controversy at Ocala Poker and Jai-Alai, which began the 2012 season with just two players.

While there might be problems with the rules, division director Leon Biegalski says there shouldn’t be a nagging issue, and that the workshops were created to help iron out these issues with all the industry’s assistance.

‘They’re draft rules. They’re a point that is starting. We should make sure that most of the license holders and all sorts of the stake holders are on the page that is same terms of exactly what the regulation is that’s around and what ought to be out there,’ Biegalski said.