The History of Racinos in the US: How Racetracks Found a Second Life

Picture a struggling horse track in the early 1990s - thinning crowds, shrinking purses and an empty grandstand where roaring fans used to stand. Now picture that same track today, buzzing with slot machines, table games and bettors cheering both the finish line and a jackpot. 

That transformation has a name, and it's one of the most fascinating success stories in American gaming: the racino.

The word itself is a cheerful mashup of "racetrack" and "casino," and it describes precisely that - a venue that pairs pari-mutuel racing with casino-style gaming, whether that's slot machines, video lottery terminals (VLTs), or full table games. 

The concept emerged in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s, driven by the need to address severe financial declines in the horse and greyhound racing industries, which had suffered from falling attendance, competition from other gambling forms, and rising operational costs. 

The numbers behind that decline are eye-opening. Inflation-adjusted pari-mutuel horse-race wagering in the United States fell 52 percent from its peak in 1977 through 2006, even as tracks experimented with simulcasting and other measures to win back bettors. 

Racing needed a lifeline - and casino gaming, once viewed as the enemy, turned out to be it. States began exploring hybrid models combining traditional pari-mutuel racing with electronic gaming devices to generate supplemental revenue while preserving racing infrastructure.

Here's where racino history gets delightfully messy. Ask three experts which state had the first racino, and you might get three answers, because everyone defines "first" a little differently:

• West Virginia (1990) - The earliest pioneer. West Virginia introduced the racino concept when MTR Gaming Group was allowed to bring video lottery terminals to Mountaineer Race Track. A legal wrinkle followed: in 1993, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that state law didn't allow for VLTs and the law needed to be changed, paving the way for the Racetrack Video Lottery Act of 1994.
• Rhode Island (1992) - Often called the first state to have one officially. Rhode Island authorized VLTs at its Lincoln Park greyhound track and Newport jai alai facility, in response to the huge opening success of Foxwoods Casino in nearby Connecticut.
• Iowa (1995) - Widely credited with the first "standard" racino, the kind with real reel-spinning slots rather than just VLTs.

The bottom line? Each state has a legitimate claim depending on whether you count VLTs versus slots, or "authorized" versus "fully operational." Rather than crowning a single winner, it's more accurate - and frankly more interesting - to say the racino was born across several states in a creative burst between 1990 and 1995.

If you want proof that racinos could revive racing rather than kill it, look no further than Iowa. Prairie Meadows had opened as a racetrack in 1989, gone bankrupt, and needed rescuing. 

Polk County, the owner of the bankrupt track, spent $26 million to convert the clubhouse into a casino and installed 1,100 slot machines. The racino opened on April 1, 1995, and reel-spinning slots proved much more popular than video poker.

The slot revenue didn't just save the track - it supercharged the entire state's racing economy. From 1995 to 1997, Iowa became America's fastest-growing thoroughbred breeding state, jumping from 28th to 12th nationally in total foals bred.

And the money flowing to horse care was staggering: annual spending for the care and maintenance of horses rose from $41 million in 1995 to $97 million in 1999, according to Iowa State University. The whole pitch is working exactly as promised.

Once the model proved itself, other states moved quickly. Here's how the key milestones unfolded:

A few of those deserve a closer look. New York's chapter is especially notable: in 2001, the legislature approved the placement of video lottery terminals at racetracks to generate more revenue for education. The flagship arrived a decade later - Resorts World Casino New York opened on October 28, 2011, as the city's first casino. 

One quirk worth knowing: New York racinos can offer VLTs, but they are barred from having the table games or real slot machines found at full-blown casinos.

Pennsylvania jumped in around the same era. In 2004, the legislature approved the Race Horse Development and Gaming Act, authorizing electronic gaming devices at racetracks, with table games approved in 2010.

Fast-forward to now, and racinos are no longer the scrappy underdogs of USA gaming - they're an established, money-making fixture from coast to coast. Pennsylvania alone shows the scale: the state offers commercial casino gaming at 11 land-based casinos and six racinos, and in 2025 its statewide commercial casino gaming revenue hit a record $7.70 billion. 

Zoom out to the national picture and the growth is jaw-dropping:

• The U.S. commercial gaming industry hit a record $78.72 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2025, a 9.2 percent increase over the previous year, according to the American Gaming Association. 
• Legal gaming generated $18.09 billion in gaming tax revenue in 2025, up 15.1 percent year-over-year - money funneled into education, infrastructure, and public services.
• Racinos are woven right into that total, from Maine's Hollywood Casino to venues across Massachusetts, Florida, Ohio and beyond.

It's a remarkable arc when you think about it. Horse track operators once believed casinos were parasitic to them, yet the very thing they feared became their salvation. The racino took two worlds that seemed to be at odds - the thunder of hooves and the chime of slot machines - and proved they could thrive side by side.

Today, when a bettor cheers a longshot crossing the wire while someone a few feet away celebrates a jackpot, they're living out a compromise that rescued an American institution. Not bad for an idea that started with a few struggling tracks and a wager that gambling's old rivals could become its best partners.