When gamblers bet at the chirping, neon-glowing machines that stretch across Kentucky’s gambling parlors, they depend on a state commission to ensure they’re winning — or losing — fair and square.
The commission that oversees gambling depends on a consulting firm for advice about ensuring these systems, known as “historical horse racing” terminals, run legally and accurately. But when it comes to testing machines, records show the state’s regulatory commission let the tracks themselves fund and oversee the consultant’s work.
From 2012 to 2017, a consultant hired by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission tested gaming machines at three gambling parlors associated with race tracks. But the horse racing commission was largely out of the loop from there: Keeneland, Ellis Park, Kentucky Downs and two machine manufacturers paid more than $845,000 for testing services with virtually no direct oversight from the horse racing commission, according to a review by the office of the Auditor of Public Accounts.
The commission didn’t even have copies of the invoices from New Jersey-based Gaming Laboratories International until it gathered them for the auditor.
The horse racing commission also asked the tracks to pay about $26,000 for the cost of the consultant’s work drafting new regulatory restrictions. The auditor’s office said he couldn’t find any law that allowed that arrangement…
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