On the eve of the North Jersey casino vote, leaders of state thoroughbred and Standardbred horse racing industries has dangled a US$15 million purse subsidy to each breed.
NorthJersey.com reported that Meadowlands Racetrack operator Jeff Gural – and potential casino operator – also announced that Monmouth Park, which is New Jersey’s exclusive thoroughbred track, will receive a US$5 million annual subsidy to fund its operating costs.
Dennis Drazin of Monmouth Park, who converted to supporting ballot question 1 just a day before residents of New Jersey vote on the fate of North Jersey casinos, made the announcement as he “urges everyone who works in horse racing, who is a fan of racing, who works on a farm or is anyway directly or indirectly related to this great industry to vote yes on Tuesday.”
North Jersey Gaming Advocates spokesman Ron Simoncini hailed the last-minute support of Drazin.
“This should affirm for the voters that the prospect of new casinos in North Jersey will bring significant benefits to the state,” Simoncini said, according to the news website “This is a complex moment in New Jersey’s history, but one that has many sincere interests working to create equity across the board.”
On November 8, New Jersey voters will decide whether they will allow a constitutional amendment that would bring casino gambling to the northern part of the state and end Atlantic City’s 40-year gambling monopoly.
Since the start of the campaign, proponents of North Jersey casino were in for an overwhelming uphill battle. Polls have shown that 55 to 71 percent of voters oppose the referendum.
In the recent survey conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind, seven out of 10 New Jersey voters are opposing a Nov. 8 referendum that will see the rise of two casinos near the border of New York.
The number of those opposing the ballot question has surged from 58 percent in June to 70 percent in October while the number of pro-North Jersey casinos dwindled from 35 percent to just 24 percent in the latest poll.
The survey was conducted to 848 registered New Jersey voters on October 12-16 and had a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.
During the start of the campaign, both Drazin and Gural locked horns on whether the Meadowlands Racetrack operator agreed to guarantee a much larger purse supplement should voters approve and should Gural subsequently win one of the two licenses.
