Churchill Downs opens Derby City Gaming in downtown Louisville
Churchill Downs Incorporated this week opened its newest historic horse racing (HHR) venue in its home state of Kentucky, the Derby City Gaming Downtown in Louisville.
The Derby City Gaming Center, located at 140 South Fourth Street in Louisville, is the result of a $90 million investment announced by Churchill in October 2021. The 43,000-square-foot hotel features 500 HHR machines, racing and sports books, three restaurants and a Kentucky Derby gift shop. Smoking is prohibited indoors, but the venue has an outdoor smoking terrace with some HHR terminals.
Derby City Gaming Downtown complements Churchill’s other HHR venue in Louisville, the Derby City Gaming Hotel at Louisiana Downs. The facility houses more than 1,300 HHR games and a newly opened hotel with 123 rooms.
In addition to the two Derby City Gaming venues in Louisville, Churchill Downs offers HHR Gaming at four other Kentucky tracks, including Ellis Park in Henderson, Newport, O. Grove and Turfway Park in Florence.
Louisville Comeback
Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said investing in Louisville is critical as the downtown area attempts to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Kentucky's largest city continues to be ravaged by the coronavirus, with many stores and office buildings remaining empty.
“Our goal is really to contribute to an area of the community that we feel really needs help, which is downtown Louisville,” Castanjan said. "We want to find a way to invest in downtown because we've seen it change with COVID and the past few years. We have to make Louisville a special place."
A recent study from the University of Toronto's Urban Institute analyzed 66 major cities in the United States and Canada to determine whether pedestrian traffic is still below 2019 levels. Researchers used mobility data to determine that Louisville ranked second-to-last out of 66 locations, with only St. Louis ranking worse. The number of pedestrians in Louisville is just over half (54%) what it was before the pandemic.
What is a HHR machine?
Casino gambling remains prohibited in Kentucky, but HHR machines have been in the Bluegrass State since 2010. Lawmakers officially legalized the gaming devices in 2021 following a 2020 state Supreme Court ruling that questioned the legality of the machines.
HHR machines look and sound like casino slot machines, but are different because their calculations are based on previously run horse racing.
Lawmakers argued that because video games are egalitarian, they are legal within the state's long-standing horse racing industry. But in September 2020, the Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously ruled that HHR machines constituted illegal gambling.
Because HHR revenue provides financial support to equestrians and the industry supports nearly 34,000 direct jobs and $115 million in annual tax revenue, Kentucky lawmakers quickly passed legislation solidifying the legal framework within which HHR operates.
Churchill HHR Director
In addition to HHR operations in its home state of Kentucky, Churchill Downs has invested heavily in HHR in Virginia even as commercial casinos with Las Vegas-style slot machines opened in the state.
Churchill acquires Peninsula Pacific Entertainment (P2E) for $2.5 billion. The acquisition includes P2E's HHR operations in Virginia, operating under the Rosie's Gaming Emporium brand.
Churchill now operates seven Rosie's HHR gaming salons. Churchill also built a $372 million HHR resort called The Rose in Dumfries, Prince William County, 30 miles south of the nation's capital.
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Source: www.casino.org
