A Kentucky state senator plans to introduce a bill when the legislature reconvenes on Tuesday that would allow tracks to continue to operate historical horse racing machines, the senator’s office announced on Thursday. Sen. John Schickel, who represents a county that includes Churchill Downs-owned Turfway Park in Northern Kentucky, said that the bill would be taken up by a committee he chairs, the Senate Licensing and Occupations Committee, on Thursday. The effort to find a legislative solution to the legality of the devices, which have generated hundreds of million of dollars for their operators and bolstered purses and breeding awards in the state, is the top political priority of the racing industry this year. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a type of device at use at some racetracks did not fit the definition of pari-mutuel wagering. “This effort is about preserving a system of wagering we’ve known for live racing for decades and historical horse racing for the last 10 years,” Schickel said. “This is about maintaining the status quo. Our immediate action as legislators is critical to protecting current and future jobs and economic development across the Commonwealth.” The bill would amend sections of Kentucky’s statutes regarding the definition of pari-mutuel wagering. Under the section on that definition, the bill changes the legal definition of a bet to a pool in which “one or more patrons wager on a horse race or races, whether live, simulcast, or previously run.” The definition also was changed to allow pools for the devices to be “provided by an association,” to address a specific point raised in the Supreme Court ruling. Because the Franklin Circuit Court has not yet re-issued an opinion on the legality of the machines, a requirement of the Supreme Court ruling, most tracks have continued to operate the devices. However, last Sunday, Keeneland and the The Red Mile, which co-own a casino located in downtown Lexington, shut their operation down, citing the “lack of clarity” on the legality of the machines. All of Kentucky’s racetracks have opened casinos operating the devices since they were first approved by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission in 2010. Churchill Downs Inc. has made a particularly large investment in the machines after first holding out in the hopes that the legislature would legalize casinos, with operations at a new facility in southwestern Kentucky, at its training center in Louisville, and at planned new locations at Churchill Downs and Turfway Park. The Kentucky legislature is meeting for a 30-day session this year, with plans to recess on March 30. Historical horse racing machines use races that have already been run to generate random numbers determining payouts to players. Although the devices give the player the option to watch the last seconds of a race in a small screen, their operations closely remember slot machines. The political effort to carve out a legislative exception for the machines could face strong opposition from conservative groups who are morally opposed to gambling, including the Family Foundation of Kentucky, which began the legal process culminating in the Supreme Court ruling last year. Republicans have a super-majority in both houses of the state legislature. Following a decision by the Supreme Court last week to deny a petition for an appeal of its earlier ruling, the Family Foundation released a statement saying that it remains opposed to any effort to legalize the devices by the legislature. “At the expense of the poor,” it said, “it will further enrich already wealthy publicly traded companies like Churchill Downs. This will aggravate the problem of money going out of the state and the state does not get much revenue from the machines anyway.” Two weeks ago, a state representative, Kim King, a Republican representing Harrodsburg, introduced a bill raising the amount of money that the state would collect from the gambling devices. The bill would raise the 1.5 percent tax on the devices to 3 percent. It would also raise the state’s collection rate from account-wagering bets placed on horse races, from 0.5 percent to 3 percent. In the last full fiscal year, July 2019-June 2020, total handle on the devices was $2.3 billion. Of that total, the operators retained $156 million, according to records of the KHRC. The Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, which distributes awards to owners and breeders, received $15.6 million, and the state received $15.2 million.