Missing Ontario’s slots-for-horses money go?
Oct 29, 2013 8:58:42 GMT -5
Post by Evelyn on Oct 29, 2013 8:58:42 GMT -5
It seems as though politics once again rears it's ugly head!
Where did Ontario’s slots-for-horses money go?
Money earmarked for Ontario’s horse racing industry were misspent or are unaccounted for due to lax oversight
By: Mary Ormsby
Toronto Star
Slot machine dollars earmarked for Ontario’s struggling horse racing industry were misspent or are unaccounted for due to lax oversight by the provincial government, a Star investigation has found.
How much is at issue is not known, but it was fear of an ORNGE-style scandal that led then Finance Minister Dwight Duncan last year to abruptly cancel the long-running deal that funded horse racing in Ontario using publicly regulated gambling revenues. In all, $4.1 billion from slot machines flowed to the sport over 15 years.
Premier Kathleen Wynne said in an interview her government cannot account for all of the money sent to track operators over that time period.
“Can I give you chapter and verse on everything that’s happened in the past?” she responded when asked if government can track every slots dollar spent by horse racing management.
“I can’t.”
How much money was misspent or overspent is unknown. The question being asked by many people in the horse racing world is: Did all the money designated for growing the sport in Ontario end up in the correct place?
One recent provincial audit of a track operator, Woodbine Entertainment Group, highlighted $45 million in cuts that had to be made over the next two years if the province was to keep funding Woodbine, according to a government document referencing the needed reductions. Those cuts included $4.5 million in executive compensation and salary rollbacks.
“I think there were some inequities in the system in terms of rates of salary, of wages,” Wynne said when asked if track executives, including those at Woodbine, were getting “rich” from slots deals.
A series of audits performed on Woodbine and other tracks would shed light on these issues. But the provincial Finance Ministry has refused to make the audit findings public, citing privacy concerns.
The provincial gambling regulator is probing governance and regulatory issues related to the Toronto-based group that runs Woodbine and Mohawk racetracks.
Woodbine’s longtime top executive, David Willmot, who retired last year, said his organization was free to decide how to use gambling proceeds. “There is no missing money at Woodbine. We have done absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing improper.”
On Oct. 11, the province announced a new deal for horse racing, committing $400 million of public money over five years in another attempt to keep track jobs in Ontario. The exception is historic Fort Erie, a thoroughbred facility deemed a risky public investment by Wynne’s government, a track which could face closure. The province has vowed “transparency” in how these new dollars will be spent beginning April 1, 2014, with contracts that stipulate track employees making more than $100,000 will be subject to “Sunshine List” salary disclosure.
The Star’s ongoing probe of horse racing issues has found that Duncan ended the previous slots deal because it had all the markings of a political bungle like that of ORNGE, senior government officials confirmed. ORNGE, the provincial air ambulance agency, had similar problems, with few controls and little oversight on how its budget of $150 million a year was spent.
Duncan would not agree to an interview for this story.
One group that tried for years to persuade the Ontario government to carefully control how slots money was spent was the Ontario Harness Horse Association. It has 3,500 boots-on-the-ground members in owners, breeders, trainers, grooms and drivers.
Brian Tropea, general manager of the association, said his group had little success urging government to install clear and accountable performance criteria.
“For the last decade, we’ve been concerned that not all the monies have been for the intended purposes to grow live horse racing,” said Tropea, holding a file filled with correspondence to provincial officials requesting more diligent policing of the slots mandate.
“We have no way of knowing where (all) the money went.”
In 1998, under the Conservative government of Premier Mike Harris, the province decided to put the lucrative slot machine program into racetracks, eventually 17 venues in all. Almost overnight, tracks like Woodbine and Windsor Raceway became the go-to place for gamblers. It had the effect of propping up the horse racing industry, which could no longer sustain itself by the late 1990s.
Those in horse racing said the program protected upwards of 20,000 to 30,000 jobs, a rich breeding tradition and the lives of thousands of racing animals. Critics claimed the money was simply a government cash grab that preyed on gamblers.
Here’s how the Slots at Racetracks Program was structured.
Slot machine revenue at the tracks was divided between the province (75 per cent) and the municipality where the track was located (5 per cent), with the remaining 20 per cent split between the host track and purses for the winners of races. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. owned and operated the machines, which were installed at racetracks — handy places already legally licensed for gambling. For Ontario, the program was lucrative, sending about $9.7 billion to provincial coffers.
When it comes to the money for the tracks themselves, the Star found there was no structure or system in place that controlled how the host track spent its share of the money — a whopping $2 billion since 1998. The funds were also to offset any negative impact of the slots on horse racing betting — an impact that was never measured — and to improve conditions at tracks.
Full article and video about Fort Erie:
www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2013/10/26/where_did_ontarios_slotsforhorses_money_go.html
Where did Ontario’s slots-for-horses money go?
Money earmarked for Ontario’s horse racing industry were misspent or are unaccounted for due to lax oversight
By: Mary Ormsby
Toronto Star
Slot machine dollars earmarked for Ontario’s struggling horse racing industry were misspent or are unaccounted for due to lax oversight by the provincial government, a Star investigation has found.
How much is at issue is not known, but it was fear of an ORNGE-style scandal that led then Finance Minister Dwight Duncan last year to abruptly cancel the long-running deal that funded horse racing in Ontario using publicly regulated gambling revenues. In all, $4.1 billion from slot machines flowed to the sport over 15 years.
Premier Kathleen Wynne said in an interview her government cannot account for all of the money sent to track operators over that time period.
“Can I give you chapter and verse on everything that’s happened in the past?” she responded when asked if government can track every slots dollar spent by horse racing management.
“I can’t.”
How much money was misspent or overspent is unknown. The question being asked by many people in the horse racing world is: Did all the money designated for growing the sport in Ontario end up in the correct place?
One recent provincial audit of a track operator, Woodbine Entertainment Group, highlighted $45 million in cuts that had to be made over the next two years if the province was to keep funding Woodbine, according to a government document referencing the needed reductions. Those cuts included $4.5 million in executive compensation and salary rollbacks.
“I think there were some inequities in the system in terms of rates of salary, of wages,” Wynne said when asked if track executives, including those at Woodbine, were getting “rich” from slots deals.
A series of audits performed on Woodbine and other tracks would shed light on these issues. But the provincial Finance Ministry has refused to make the audit findings public, citing privacy concerns.
The provincial gambling regulator is probing governance and regulatory issues related to the Toronto-based group that runs Woodbine and Mohawk racetracks.
Woodbine’s longtime top executive, David Willmot, who retired last year, said his organization was free to decide how to use gambling proceeds. “There is no missing money at Woodbine. We have done absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing improper.”
On Oct. 11, the province announced a new deal for horse racing, committing $400 million of public money over five years in another attempt to keep track jobs in Ontario. The exception is historic Fort Erie, a thoroughbred facility deemed a risky public investment by Wynne’s government, a track which could face closure. The province has vowed “transparency” in how these new dollars will be spent beginning April 1, 2014, with contracts that stipulate track employees making more than $100,000 will be subject to “Sunshine List” salary disclosure.
The Star’s ongoing probe of horse racing issues has found that Duncan ended the previous slots deal because it had all the markings of a political bungle like that of ORNGE, senior government officials confirmed. ORNGE, the provincial air ambulance agency, had similar problems, with few controls and little oversight on how its budget of $150 million a year was spent.
Duncan would not agree to an interview for this story.
One group that tried for years to persuade the Ontario government to carefully control how slots money was spent was the Ontario Harness Horse Association. It has 3,500 boots-on-the-ground members in owners, breeders, trainers, grooms and drivers.
Brian Tropea, general manager of the association, said his group had little success urging government to install clear and accountable performance criteria.
“For the last decade, we’ve been concerned that not all the monies have been for the intended purposes to grow live horse racing,” said Tropea, holding a file filled with correspondence to provincial officials requesting more diligent policing of the slots mandate.
“We have no way of knowing where (all) the money went.”
In 1998, under the Conservative government of Premier Mike Harris, the province decided to put the lucrative slot machine program into racetracks, eventually 17 venues in all. Almost overnight, tracks like Woodbine and Windsor Raceway became the go-to place for gamblers. It had the effect of propping up the horse racing industry, which could no longer sustain itself by the late 1990s.
Those in horse racing said the program protected upwards of 20,000 to 30,000 jobs, a rich breeding tradition and the lives of thousands of racing animals. Critics claimed the money was simply a government cash grab that preyed on gamblers.
Here’s how the Slots at Racetracks Program was structured.
Slot machine revenue at the tracks was divided between the province (75 per cent) and the municipality where the track was located (5 per cent), with the remaining 20 per cent split between the host track and purses for the winners of races. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. owned and operated the machines, which were installed at racetracks — handy places already legally licensed for gambling. For Ontario, the program was lucrative, sending about $9.7 billion to provincial coffers.
When it comes to the money for the tracks themselves, the Star found there was no structure or system in place that controlled how the host track spent its share of the money — a whopping $2 billion since 1998. The funds were also to offset any negative impact of the slots on horse racing betting — an impact that was never measured — and to improve conditions at tracks.
Full article and video about Fort Erie:
www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2013/10/26/where_did_ontarios_slotsforhorses_money_go.html
