Oaklawn Park revamped with electronic gambling

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Oaklawn Park has opened its expanded electronic gambling parlor, giving bettors a casino atmosphere in which they can play craps, poker, blackjack and machines that look an awful lot like slots.

The track starts its live thoroughbred racing season next week, and the new gambling area marks a significant step for the 106-year-old venue, which remains the state’s largest single tourist attraction.

The expanded parlor is having a soft opening to work out bugs before fans arrive to bet on the horses starting Jan. 15. The 850-station electronic gambling room caps the track’s long-sought answer to casinos in surrounding states, which first popped up 20 years ago in Tunica, Miss., and cut deeply into Oaklawn’s revenue.

The expansion also comes just after the state launched the Arkansas Lottery.

“We’re not the only game in town anymore,” Oaklawn spokesman Terry Wallace said. “Arkansas is in the lottery business; we’re not the only people who offer the opportunity to gamble.”

Dozens of people sat Thursday afternoon at various machines, ranging from penny games that resemble slot machines to electronic blackjack tables with a minimum $25 bet.

Some blackjack tables feature video dealers on a large screen — a young woman in a low-cut black dress or a man in a tuxedo — who are programmed to appear to make eye contact as they go from bettor to bettor. Other tables have a live person with a bank of chips, collecting losses and paying winnings. The “cards” are all electronic, just like the dice in the craps games.

Oaklawn also added a buffet, a separate poker room and a racebook for high-dollar horse players. The penny machines also are new.

All the games are technically “electronic games of skill,” a designation that allowed Oaklawn and Southland Gaming and Racing in West Memphis to get around a ban on casinos in the Arkansas Constitution.

Oaklawn and Southland, once only a greyhound track, lost a 1996 statewide voter referendum that would have allowed them to open casinos. But each won local votes in 2006 that permitted “electronic games of skill” thanks to a bill that cleared the Legislature the year before.

Southland immediately expanded. Oaklawn waited for a challenge before the Arkansas Supreme Court to play out. Once the challenge was thrown out, Oaklawn had to schedule construction around its live racing season.

Oaklawn’s gambling parlor is open longer each day than its simulcast racing hours. Gamblers can start at 10 a.m. and play until 2 a.m. on weekdays. On Friday and Saturday nights, the parlor is open until 4 a.m.

“There is enough tourism traffic in our town, people are always looking for things to do,” said Wallace, who added that 1 million people will walk through Oaklawn’s doors this year.

The expansion brought the number of gambling stations to 850 from 625, a far cry from the few dozen Instant Racing machines that Oaklawn pioneered a decade ago. Almost half of its machines now are Instant Racing terminals, where bettors wager on historic thoroughbred races.

On Tuesday, Oaklawn will go dark for three days to renovate for the live season. The following Friday will feature the $50,000 Dixie Belle Stakes, part of a four-day opening weekend that will include three stakes races.