For Kentucky to keep winning, it must be allowed to play the game.

Indisputably, horse racing is Kentucky’s signature industry. It creates billions of dollars in revenue and employs over 100,000 people. However, competition from surrounding states is threatening to rob Kentucky of this trademark.

Whether you like it or not, casino gambling is a fact of life all around Kentucky’s borders. Race tracks in virtually every other state have added casino gambling in the form of slot machines to their tracks. This results in more revenue for the track, higher purses, better horses, more tourists, more jobs, and an overall enhanced economy.

It’s a fact that people follow money.

Every dollar that gets dropped into a racetrack slot machine serves several purposes. According to a USA Today article, about one-fourth goes to the racetrack itself, another fourth goes to operating costs and the occasional payoff for lucky players, another fourth goes to the state in the form of taxes, and the last fourth is added to the purses offered to the jockeys and horse owners. This means that the world’s greatest horse owners, who once raced at Churchill Downs or Keenland, will now race their top notch horses in, say, Delaware or West Virginia, where they can receive higher purses for themselves and their jockeys. Who could blame them?

In addition to losing our first-class horses, if Kentucky does not step up to the plate, we will also lose our best workers. Immigrants make up an immense proportion of the people employed by the horse industry. As the legal immigrants move to work for the more prosperous race tracks, Kentucky tracks will hire illegal immigrants, resulting in additional negative effects on the economy.

Kentucky is still number one in horse racing, but there can be little doubt that, over time, this competition from other states will have an adverse impact on Kentucky horse racing and the horse industry in Kentucky, unless Kentucky is allowed to freely compete.

People must look beyond emotional arguments and look at the facts. The market does not care about whether you like gambling or not, it cares about the bottom line.

If we want Kentucky to retain its status as home to the best horses in the world, then we must allow Kentucky to compete in the free market without restrictions and no longer deny Kentucky’s horse tracks the right to casino gambling.