Where is greyhound racing legal

How do you win at greyhound racing? What does W mean in greyhound racing? How much does a 10 cent superfecta box pay? Is greyhound racing legal in Florida? Is greyhound racing legal in the US? Why do greyhounds chatter their teeth? Would a Greyhound kill a cat? What is the life expectancy of a greyhound? Many of these concerns arose due to the breeding practices of greyhounds coming to light. Only 30 percent of the greyhounds that are bred actually make it to a racetrack.

The rest are either given away or euthanized merely because they lack the potential to win. The greyhounds that actually make it to the racetrack suffer many injuries such as broken legs and necks, cardiac arrest, and spinal cord paralysis. Even when greyhounds are off of the track, they are placed in kennels for up to 20 hours a day or are kept outdoors with minimal shelter.

By the s, states began repealing their authorization of pari-mutuel wagering on dog racing. As a result, greyhound racing is now illegal in 41 states. Today, the only states that still allow greyhound racing and have active tracks are Alabama , Arkansas , Iowa , Texas and West Virginia. There are four states that do not have active racetracks, but still have laws legalizing greyhound racing. Those states are Wisconsin , Connecticut , Kansas , and Oregon.

All nine of these states authorize pari-mutuel wagering and require a license for a track to hold dog races. With the exception of Wisconsin and Connecticut , each state created a racing commission through their respective statutes to supervise races, issue licenses, and regulate racing. Wisconsin has its department of administration supervise, regulate, and issue licenses. At the time, the town, wedged between Berkeley and Oakland, was a haven for gambling dens, speakeasies and brothels and thus it was thought a greyhound circuit would fit snugly.

But greyhound racing would soon thrive in other parts of the US, notably in Florida, which, post-Prohibition, was one of the first states to legalise gambling on the greyhounds in Today, greyhound racing has been illegal for decades in its original state of California and last month Florida banned betting on the sport 2.

This means that as we approach its centenary as an industry, the sport is effectively dead in the US. And the prognosis internationally is equally grim. Remember Me. Get access to all of the expert analysis and commentary at LawInSport including articles, webinars, conference videos and podcast transcripts. The fans who remained skewed older. Their target, Carl Reiner, then 79, fit in perfectly with the graying greyhound crowd.

Some people got into racing because they love greyhounds. Trainer and kennel owner John Farmer, a Klamath Tribe member from Oregon, said he fell in love with the breed when he was 11 and his mother let him watch races at Multnomah Greyhound Park. Now 55, he carries mementos of his winning dogs in an overflowing Tupperware container. Greyhounds are affectionate animals, not particularly high-strung, said longtime veterinarian Donald Beck. In his time at Derby Lane, Beck said he was never bitten—but he had been scratched by excited dogs jumping on him.

That race drew 12, people—the largest crowd in track history. By Saturday races drew maybe a thousand. The industry tried to adapt, winning legislative approval in for poker rooms and for simulcasting, which lets bettors wager on races elsewhere.

The poker rooms remained packed. After dog racing ended, simulcast races drew some fans. For a decade, Grey2K tried to persuade Florida legislators to reform greyhound racing, to no avail. The organization and its allies spent three million dollars advocating for Amendment 13, Theil says, mostly for TV ads showing mistreated racing dogs. Yet the industry drew little support beyond its fan base.

Nearly 70 percent of the voters said yes to the amendment. Besides the track employees losing jobs, the shutdown affected trainers and kennel owners.

Farmer, for example, said he would relocate to West Virginia, one of the three remaining states along with Iowa and Arkansas that still have consistent racing seasons. Greyhound adoption agencies set about finding homes for the Florida dogs that were still racing as of December She and her husband, Brian, have eight adopted dogs themselves.

They go through a couple of pound bags of dog food every 10 days or so. Dippel said plenty of people lined up to adopt dogs. As pets, greyhounds still like to run when they get outdoors, even without a mechanical device to chase, Dippel said. But when they get back indoors? All rights reserved. Animals Feature. The era of greyhound racing in the U. Sleek greyhounds thunder around the sandy oval at Derby Lane in St.

Petersburg, Florida, in August Derby Lane, the oldest continuously operating dog track in the U. Voters effectively ended the sport when they opted to ban betting on dog races because of concerns about mistreatment of the dogs. A version of this story appears in the March issue of National Geographic magazine.