ARCADIA, Calif. – The seizure of 26 slot-styled parimutuel gaming machines at Santa Anita late Saturday by law enforcement officers is expected to lead to legal action by the track as soon as this week, a high-ranking executive said Monday. The machines, which offered a single game called Racing on Demand, were installed last Thursday and were available to the public for less than three racing days before the government intervened. In a statement issued early Saturday evening, about the same time the machines were being driven off the property in the back of two trucks, officials with the track’s parent company said the machines were legal and that the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta had been briefed on their existence. On Monday, Scott Daruty, senior vice president of 1/ST Racing, the track’s parent company, said the company will take a proactive legal approach. “I can’t get into any specifics of our legal strategy,” he said. “We could be in court this week.” Daruty said the track reached out to the attorney general’s office on “multiple occasions” to detail the gaming machines before implementation. “At no point did anyone dispute our legal reasoning,” he said. The machines were seized by approximately 25 California Department of Justice officers shortly after 4 p.m., prior to the conclusion of the Saturday’s racing program. “They did not have a court order [or] a court-issued search warrant,” Daruty said. The government’s action disrupts Santa Anita’s plan to develop a secondary source of income to aid purses at a time when tracks in other states are thriving because of revenue from slot machines or casinos. The Racing on Demand machines offered $1 bets only and required bettors to select the first three finishers of three random six-horse races.  Bettors received payoffs for correctly naming a minimum of three of the nine finishing positions. Payoffs ranged from $2.98 for naming three or four of the finishing positions to approximately $10,000 for naming all nine. The games were based on past races at several tracks outside of California. The machines are a variation of the historical horse racing machines that have been wildly successful at tracks outside of California. The format of Racing on Demand is based on a $1 3x3 wager introduced at Del Mar in August 2024 and approved by the California Horse Racing Board earlier that year.  Santa Anita did not extensively promote the launch of the Racing on Demand machines, sending out rudimentary information to the press only in the hour before the games were introduced. The Racing on Demand machines were housed in a small pavilion on the ground floor of the grandstand.  On Sunday, the space was empty. On four pillars surrounding the pavilion, notices from the California Department of Justice were posted, citing a California penal code allowing the machines to be seized and destroyed if in violation of laws, pending a court decision. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.