Raynham Park looks to new era, hangs hopes on sports betting – Boston Herald

After their business was nearly destroyed by ballot initiative a decade ago, the owners of Raynams once booming greyhound track plan for their mostly shuttered dog racing park to have its day again.

This is almost unchanged from when I was a kid, Chris Carney, the third of his surname to run Raynham Park, said as he walked through the old clubhouse, the decor around him proving his point well enough.

A walk through the building is a trip through time.

A stained drop ceiling hangs above worn geometric carpets. Heavy old tube televisions dot the gambling floor, surrounded by first-generation flat screens. The wood accents are oak veneered and the tables are chipped laminate, flanked by open-back, cracked vinyl-covered chairs. The place is as clean as an 80-year-old gambling parlor can be, but showing the wear of time.

A crowd of about a dozen arrives for opening and to stake a claim on their regular seats. Some play Keno before the horses start running elsewhere and bets are placed via simulcast. The room still smells of old cigarette smoke, though no ones been allowed to light anything in there for more than a decade.

Like smoking, because of a change in the law and as a consequence of public opinion, there is no racing in Raynham Park either, though the remnants of that era still stand, for now.

This will all have to come down, Carney said, before turning his attention to the remains of the dog track outside. Its really sad to see it like that. You should have seen this place in the 80s.

Back then, when the greyhounds still chased mechanical rabbits around the sand and loam of the racing track, the room would be filled to overflowing. A normal day saw 3,000 race fans, Carney said. The now clunky four-inch-thick monitors lining the window, which used to overlook the grandstand, were premium seating then. The track closed the books on the decade after handling $240 million in bets in 1989.

Those were the best years, 94-year-old George Carney Jr. said. The business was chewed away bit by bit after that, he said.

Competition for the commonwealths racing tracks had come mostly from the state lottery during the 70s and 80s, the elder Carney said, but in 1992 Foxwoods Casino opened.

We survived that, he said. It took some of our betting, but we survived.

A ballot initiative in 2000 aimed to make dog racing illegal, proponents said, out of concern for the safety of the dogs. The industry fought back, and survived that too.

In 2008 things went differently.

That same group that tried it earlier came back and got it through, George Carney Jr. said. That hurt a lot.

The Massachusetts Greyhound Protection Act passed by the will of the voters in 2008, forcing an end to dog racing in the state by 2010.

From their height of about 500 employees, the track now employs less than 100.

The owners have kept things alive as best they could, longtime employee Sharon Butts said.

When (voters) changed that law, they just werent thinking about how all those jobs were gone, she said. Theyve tried to keep the place going, they really have. Its like a family here.

The track missed the bid for a casino license when the state expanded gambling in 2011. The Legislature may have saved them with sports betting, made legal just this summer.

That law includes a provision granting license eligibility to existing tracks. The track at Raynham, despite being mostly grass, weeds and the smell of rot at this point, still qualifies.

The Carneys arent hesitating. When the laws passage became clear, George Carney Jr. bought an additional 13 acres next to the current park. The family has already begun construction on a standalone sports betting parlor there which will, they say, be the largest of its kind in the country.

The family hopes the new facility, a 60,000 square foot sportsbook that will include more than 30,000 square feet of gaming space, two restaurants, several bars, private function rooms and capacity for 2,000 patrons, according to a family spokesperson, will attract a new crowd to Raynham Park.

This younger generation likes to go out, but there isnt a whole lot to do around here, Carney said. I really think this will be a destination for the older college students in the area.

The facility will open next year, sometime in April or May, and depending on how long the Gaming Commission takes to implement the new law. Chris Carney said hes not in a hurry.

I want to do it right, he said.

He hopes to hire about 200 people for the new business, he said, bringing the staff to 300.

This will be good for Raynham, he said. In the 80s, the city used to get an annual about $500,000 check from the parks revenues.

Chris Carney said he can only hope that sports betting does that well.

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Raynham Park looks to new era, hangs hopes on sports betting - Boston Herald