No Slot Machines for Arcadia

According to Santa Anita Park and city officials, the rumor of slot machines going into The Shops at Santa Anita is completely false. The activist group Arcadia First says that they are planning on bringing 240 slot machines into the mall. George Haines, General Manger of Santa Anita Park said, “As of today, adding Horse Wizard [slot machine] gaming machines is not a part of the plan." He said that Arcadia First was “misinformed and the rumors about what we're doing here are completely false. We have legally offered pari-mutuel wagering since 1934."

Bernetta Reade, Executive Director of Arcadia First, said that the slot machines were real and not properly disclosed. She said that she was looking through the documentation of the proposal by Caruso Development, and found that the slot machines were listed in an Architectural Design Review. "The machines are not talked about anywhere in the environmental documents," she said. "There needs to be a dialogue about exactly what it is they are planning to do, and that is not happening."

City officials sided with Haines, but in their rebuttal left some unanswered questions pertaining to the slot machines as well. They said that they were going to analyze all of the documentation, but that they did not “have the right to stop Santa Anita from trying to increase attendance at their facility that they feel would make their business more successful."

The slot machines they claim are actually betting machines that look and feel like slot machines but aren’t. They say that patrons are actually using the slot type machines to bet on real horse races that are taking place somewhere else in the country.

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