Gov. Tina Kotek shut the door this week on Oregon’s massive, if largely invisible, position within the quickly declining sport of greyhound racing.
On Could 7, Kotek signed Home Invoice 3020, which, in response to a employees abstract, “prohibits any particular person from wagering on the result of a greyhound or different canine race, or settle for or facilitate such wagering, whatever the location the place the race takes place.”
The invoice might sound complicated and even pointless, provided that greyhounds haven’t raced in Oregon for greater than 20 years. For a lot of the twentieth century, canine racing drew massive crowds in Oregon. Multnomah Greyhound Park in Wooden Village held greater than 18,000 individuals and had a seating capability of greater than 6,000. However declining curiosity and powerful criticism from animal rights activists led to the park’s closure in 2004.
Regardless of the game’s waning reputation, boosters of animal racing—each canines and horses—noticed a possibility. In 1999, they satisfied Oregon lawmakers that the state must host on-line playing (at a time when the web barely existed) on each sorts of animals.
Oregon acquired an early soar within the enterprise, and firms providing what is known as “superior deposit wagering” established themselves right here. In 2025, Oregon-based superior deposit wagering firms took greater than $6.5 billion in bets, about half of all the cash wagered within the nation on animal races and about 95% of all ADW betting. (The overwhelming majority of that cash was wager on horses.)
Two lawmakers, late Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) and state Rep. David Gomberg (D-Otis), tried earlier to get Oregon to cease reserving bets on canines. They handed Senate Invoice 1504 in 2022 to do exactly that.
However due to ambiguity within the legislation, Oregon ADW firms continued to take bets on canines. (Just one state, West Virginia, nonetheless hosts reside canine racing, however it continues in lots of nations, and Oregon firms took bets on races on the overseas tracks.)
This yr, Kotek requested lawmakers to repair SB 1504 to make it crystal clear that Oregon would cease facilitating canine racing, no matter the place the bettors or tracks is perhaps positioned. The invoice sailed by each chambers.
Gomberg says he’s thrilled. “It’s about time,” he says. “I’m glad we’ve gotten Oregon out of facilitating this horrible apply all over the world.”
So is Carey Theil, a former Oregon resident who now heads the Boston-based greyhound advocacy group GREY2K.
“That is the largest victory for American greyhound advocates since Florida outlawed canine racing in 2018,” Theil stated. “The partitions are closing in on the ultimate remnants of this merciless trade.”
Oregon Journalism Challenge
This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Challenge, a nonprofit investigative newsroom for the state of Oregon. OJP seeks to tell, have interaction and empower Oregonians with investigative and watchdog reporting that makes a major impression on the state and native ranges. Its tales seem in companion newspapers throughout the state. Study extra at oregonjournalismproject.org.
