With passage of SB 1504, Oregon has become the 42nd state to ban betting on Greyhound races, a change which will take effect on July 1.
Betting on greyhound races is still legal in Alabama, Connecticut, Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin, but there are no tracks in those states.
The only betting US racing greyhound tracks still in existence are Arkansas, Iowa, and West Virginia, but Arkansas and Iowa are in the process or phasing out their tracks, which will make West Virginia the last US track standing in a few years.
As I have noted in the past, Greyhound racing with mechanical rabbits is only about 100 years old, and has nothing to do with hare and rabbit hunting with greyhounds.
The end of greyhound racing has been propelled by the horrible history of the tracks (greyhound puppy mills tied to tracks where dogs that did not win at least one of their first three wins were shot), changes in entertainment access, and gambling laws which makes video games, slot machines, and online gambling more popular and lucrative than dog tracks.
Longtime readers of this blog will remember that in the past folks said the closing of the dog tracks would generate a huge wave of greyhounds coming into rescues. Did that happen? No. Was the actual motivation here less a concern about canine welfare and more about the AKC and dog breeders looking for a cause to flog? Yes.
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