Poker Brings New Life to Pensacola Dog Track

The Pensacola Greyhound Track in Florida’s Panhandle had fallen on hard times over the last decade. Attendance was down, unemployment was up and the racetrack open since 1946 was facing an uncertain future.

But almost a year ago in February 2009 the Escambia County Commissioners – who oversee gaming matters in a district that includes Pensacola — voted to allow the racetrack to install a 25-table poker room in order to provide jobs and increase revenues. This week, general manager Nick Schlikin opened the much anticipated poker room at noon.

It was an instant success.

“This keeps the doors open,” Schlikin said. “You’re going to keep the existing jobs here at the track, and we’re creating more jobs with the poker room. Look around — we’ve only been open a few minutes, and we’ve already got 14 tables full and more players coming in. We’re excited.”

The poker room offers a variety of games, together with the most popular, Texas Hold’em, along with Omaha and Seven Card Stud and include limit as well as no-limit games. It has created more then 100 new jobs for dealers, cocktail waitresses and chip runners compared with the 25 employees working on the dog racing side of the track.

Escambia County Commissioner Gene Valentino attended this week’s grand opening. “It’s a jolt to the economy,” he said. “It’s a jump-start for economic development. It’s not about gambling, it’s about a rebirth of enthusiasm and hope for economic opportunity in this county.”

And there was a lot of enthusiasm among the men lined up to register for a seat at one of the poker tables.

Florida state law allows individuals over the age of 18 to play bingo, poker, and participate and state lottery games.

Prior to Wednesday’s opening Floridians craving a little poker action had to travel as far as the Mississippi Gulf Coast casinos in Gulfport and Biloxi, saving residents in northwest Florida a two hour drive on the best of days.

William Vineyard, whose responsibility it has been to get the newly licensed poker room up and running arrived in Pensacola 10 weeks ago from Mississippi. He has been credited with infusing the local economy with some much needed cash, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars remodeling nearly 9000 square feet inside the track and converting it into a poker room.

Yet, despite its immediate and undeniable effect on the local economy, the greater benefit to the community at large will be the revenue the poker room will generate for state and local government.

It is estimated that each of the poker room’s 25 tables will generate roughly  $1,000 per year for the state. In addition, the state will collect another 10% of rake generated, while 4 percent will go to the Pensacola Greyhound Track. Added to that sum will be the State and local sales tax generated by food and beverage sales.

“I think this is a win-win for both sides,” Schlikin the track’s general manager, said. “There’s a lot of excitement about this.”