Reality of Florida Greyhound Racing

Mark Twain commented in Chapters from My Autobiography that "Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force:  'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'" (1)

Grey2K USA, an animal rights lobby associated with ALF, HSUS, and PeTA, attempts to skew statistics to support their arguments that a) greyhounds are being euthanized by the thousands when their racing careers are over and b) that wagering on Greyhound racing has drastically declined.

Well, the actual numbers don't support their claims.

A well intentioned reader on the Grey2K USA's FaceBook page recently commented that he understood from a friend that nearly all retired racing greyhounds are now placed in adoptibe homes. Christine Dorchak replied, "We believe adoption is increasing, but the National Greyhound Association admits that thousands of ex-racers are still killed each year,"

Her statement isn't true.  It's a damned lie.

According to National Greyhound Association (NGA) Executive Director Gary Guccione, with the decline in the number of greyhound pups registered each year (11,000 in 2013), more than 95% of today's registered racers are placed in adoptibe homes or returned to the farm as either pets or breeding stock when they retire.

Christine's math doesn't add up and it hasn't added up for a long, long time... years even.

The American Greyhound Council stated last month,

"We're not sure whether Twain would laugh or just shake his head in disbelief at Dorchak's response." (2)

Numbers Don't Lie...

The reality of Florida greyhound racing, and the attendance/wagering on greyhound racing has been very consistent!

Greyhound Totals Are Blue

Grey2K would have you believe differently but per the Annual Report from Florida's Division Of Pari-mutuel Wagering, for years 2010 - 2013, the pari-mutuel wagering activity on greyhounds is almost unchanged.  Yep....  UNCHANGED.

The wagering numbers back from 2004 to 2009 were from more races and more tracks, so they do not represent today's greyhound racing circuit.  But the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 are representative and they show consistent greyhound wagering numbers. The numbers they show could hardly present a sport described as 'in decline', as some animal rights lobby groups would have you believe.  Keep in mind that these totals DO NOT INCLUDE all of the millions of dollars wagered online through Oregon call centers and online betting portals.

To put it into perspective, here are the quarterly totals on monies wagered in Oregon for 2013 on pari-mutuel sports (incl horse racing, greyhound, trotters, etc).  These dollars, the Quarter Totals, do not show up in Florida greyhound pari-mutuel reports.

Q1 2013 wagered: $555,867,090.08

Q2 2013 wagered: $685,399,584.70

Q3 2013 wagered: $667,369,996.70

This means is that various special interest groups, animal rights zealots, have been misrepresenting the numbers in an effort to make it appear that wagering and interest in Greyhound racing is on the decline.

If you buy into their lies, I have a bridge in Death Valley to sell you.

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1.  Mark Twain (1906-09-07). "Chapters from My Autobiography". North American Review. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2007-05-23.

2.  American Greyhound Council, Press Release, 2014-02-03