It looks like the handwriting is on the wall for dog racing in Iowa. It’s a deplorable sport that brings in negligible revenue: an ancient curiosity kept alive by casino revenue. Dog tracks can’t even get the support of city fathers in Council Bluffs or Dubuque. The two tracks grossed a measly $6 million last year, numbers that would spell doom for any other sort of gaming facility.
Can one really argue with the proposition that $14 in annual casino subsidies “could be better spent on charitable causes in the communities where the tracks exist, or to make improvements at the adjacent casinos“? Certainly not in the face of vast public indifference to dog racing. State Sen. Pam Jochum (D) certainly has a point when she says, “If this were any other business in the private sector, it would have been shut down a long time ago.” Where is the invisible hand of the free market?
Jochum’s colleague, Jeff Danielson (D) “probably won’t consider a bill to end dog racing unless the greyhound industry and the casino industry can reach an agreement that both sides are comfortable with,” which is the perfect recipe for gridlock; irresolution brought upon senatorial spinelessness. The one certainty seems to be that it’s going to cost casinos a fair packet of money to be rid of greyhound racing.
Casino owners enjoy bipartisan support for proposals that would allow them to drop dog racing without endangering their gambling licenses. Civic 
pressure from Council Bluffs and Dubuque might turn the tide, particularly coming from the latter, which owns the Mystique dog track. But the biggest charity supported by Mystique has been the track itself. Caesars Entertainment would no doubt be only too happy to have back the $10 million a year with which it props up the Council Bluffs track. As Iowa Greyhound Association attorney Jerry Crawford puts it, “Do you throw hundreds of Iowans out of work in order to pay down corporate debt in Las Vegas?”
Of course, that depends on how many Iowans really have skin in the dog-racing game. From the look of … not too many.
