FLORENCE, Ky. -- The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission at a meeting on Tuesday in Florence approved the sale of Ellis Park to a New Mexico-based company that has pledged to invest approximately $60 million in the track and its casino facility over the next two years. The motion to approve the sale to Laguna Development Corporation, an investment and operating company owned by the Pueblo of Laguna Native American tribe, included a provision enabling Ellis to operate up to 1,200 slot machine-like devices known as historical horse racing machines, nearly triple the amount currently in operation at the western Kentucky track. The machines are in a separate facility adjacent to the track’s grandstand. As part of its presentation to the commission, representatives of Laguna said they would invest approximately $50 million to expand the casino part of the facility to accommodate the new allotment of machines. The representatives also said that they would invest another $10 million in racing-related projects, including a widening of the track’s turf course and the installation of lights to provide for night racing. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but Ken Mimmack, a representative of Laguna, said that the company would pay cash for the track. He also told the commission that “it’s no secret that Ellis has been losing money for years.” The sale comes just one year after a company that owns Saratoga Casino and Raceway, a harness track and slot parlor in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., reached a deal to buy Ellis from Ron Geary, a private investor who had owned the track for more than a decade. Ellis is located in Henderson, Ky., a short drive from several casinos over the Ohio River in Indiana, and it has struggled to keep pace with its competition. Laguna owns and operates three casinos in New Mexico, along with several travel centers and a hotel in the state. The company has been attempting to secure the last racing license in New Mexico, which comes with a casino license. Mimmack said that the company has been looking at acquiring a racing license for several years, saying that the business fits with the company’s portfolio. Asked after the approval what the company planned to do to make Ellis more competitive with the casinos in its market, he said, “What we will have that they don’t have is a racetrack. We’re going to use that as much as we can.” The sale comes at a time when the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission has been aggressively pushing racetracks in the state to install more and more historical horse racing machines, under the rationale that the machines generate additional revenue for racing operations, capital improvements, and purses. In addition to Ellis, the machines are in operation at facilities owned by Churchill Downs, Keeneland, Kentucky Downs, and The Red Mile, but they have been passed over by Turfway Park, which has been owned by a company that also owns a casino in Cincinnati, just miles from the track.  The timing of the sale is conspicuous given the political situation in Kentucky, where Matt Bevin, a Tea Party Republican who has resisted calls for casino gambling in the state, faces re-election this year. Bevin’s Democratic opponent, Steve Beshear, said during campaigning for his party’s primary that he would push for the legalization of casinos in order to provide funding for the state’s pension funds, which are facing enormous shortfalls that have been politically challenging to address. Most political observers expect racetracks to be tabbed as casino locations if legislation legalizing casinos passes. Mimmack said that Laguna has been working with Saratoga’s current ownership on capital-improvement projects at Ellis even prior to the sale, getting approval to demolish some dilapidated barns on the backstretch and refresh the dirt racing surface with tons of new material. John Forgy, the commission’s general counsel, said that he was approached in January by the attorney representing Laguna, Robert Beck – a former chairman of the commission and an attorney with deep ties in the racing community – and that the team had been working to close the deal for months. The transfer of ownership is expected to be completed in the next several days. Ellis Park begins its live racing meet on July 4, running on a Friday-through-Sunday schedule until Sept. 2. Mimmack said that the projects to expand the turf course and install lights will be completed in the off-season, with night racing beginning in 2020.