The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is intently monitoring the abrupt closure of the Raynham Park simulcasting parlor, one of many state’s few playing amenities that predate its casinos.
During a gaming fee assembly final week, MGC racing director Alex Lightbown stated she had heard from an govt at Raynham Park that the closure would simply be non permanent, and that the house owners needed to hold onto their simulcasting license. The Raynham facility, lengthy overseen by members of the Carney household, closed down after Christmas, although it reopened for just a few days in January to permit patrons to retrieve cash from their betting accounts.
The Carneys declined to remark concerning the closure of the simulcasting parlor, as soon as dwelling to a greyhound race observe, aside from to deal with it in a short assertion to the media issued on Dec. 27. In that assertion, the Carneys, doing enterprise as Massasoit Greyhound Association, stated the non permanent closure will accommodate renovations on the website, together with the opening of an unspecified new facility on the property, and will take a number of months to finish.
Business had been slowing in 2024, in line with the most recent annual report from by the gaming fee’s racing division. Raynham Park’s simulcasting bets totaled $11.5 million that yr, down 26 p.c from 2023.
The Carneys had already invested practically $30 million within the property to open a sportsbook there, in partnership with Caesars. Those plans fell apart in 2023 amid gaming fee scrutiny involving a debris-processing and recycling enterprise led by Christopher Carney, son of longtime Raynham proprietor George Carney, that had an environmental enforcement issue with the state a decade earlier.
The two legacy simulcasting facilities in Massachusetts, Suffolk Downs and Raynham, permit individuals to position bets on televised races though stay racing has ended at each places. Those two betting parlors even have the correct to open bodily sports activities betting operations per state legislation, as do the state’s three casinos; a kind of, Plainridge Park Casino, is a legacy horse observe and nonetheless affords stay harness racing and simulcasting.
The controversy across the failed sportsbook plans in Raynham didn’t come up at Thursday’s gaming fee assembly, nor did anybody point out current rumors that the Carneys could be seeking to promote. Instead, the gaming fee employees obtained approval to ship a letter to Raynham Park asking for a “temporary cessation plan” addressing what’s being executed to accommodate displaced workers and to assist bettors who positioned cash with Raynham, in addition to persevering with to pay taxes to the state. That letter went out on Friday, and requested for a response by Jan. 29.
“They have been actively working with us . . . to account for many of these items,” stated Justin Stempeck, the fee’s common counsel. “I think it would just be good to document what they’ve done.”
It’s unclear what number of employees misplaced their jobs over the vacations because of this. The state’s Executive of Office and Labor and Workforce Development has not obtained a so-called WARN discover informing the company of the layoffs in Raynham.
“We’re monitoring it, we’re on top of it,” stated Jordan Maynard, the gaming fee’s chairman. “The real aim here from the MGC’s prospective is to protect the patrons, protect the employees of Raynham Park and to make sure . . . the Commonwealth gets anything that it’s owed.”
Jon Chesto could be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.