Las Vegas. The mecca of profligacy and prurience. Showgirls and showboats. High rolls and no hopers. But a mecca for horseracing? Actually, yes.Occasionally.Las Vegas Downs came and went in the 1930s, the makeshift dirt-oval no rival for the nearby casinos reproducing like rabbits thanks to the legalization of gambling earlier that decade.In the 1950s, the Las Vegas Park racetrack opened to a storybook of accounting and operational fouls that led swiftly to its ignominious end just 13-days later, penniless and half finished. The track was the brainchild of New York promoter Joseph M. Smoot, a frost-tipped “lamster” who would face felony embezzlement charges.The 1960s brought Thunderbird Downs, a little pony track behind the eponymous Hotel. Five-term conservative House member Sam Steiger-nicknamed the “Jackass Killer” for an unsavory incident involving burros-called the races.In the 1980s, plans for a racetrack in Henderson, on the outskirts of Vegas, came and went with the desert sun.A checkered legacy, perhaps. But a figure from the world of cryptocurrency believes the sport of kings and the city of sin can still forge a marriage that lasts longer than the ones minted in the Elvis Chapel.“I'm looking out my apartment right now watching the Oakland A's baseball stadium being built on the strip. I see the hockey stadium from where I am. There's an MLS [Major League Soccer] team coming probably. There's an NBA team coming. They have WrestleMania,” said Chip Meyers, 58, founder of a company that operates Bitcoin ATM machines.“It's grown exponentially. It has the greatest restaurants in the world, I believe. More than LA. More than San Francisco. More than New York. Every chef has a restaurant here. There's just so much to do,” he added. “But we were like, 'what is missing?' And we kept on coming back to horse racing.”Which brings Meyers to Las Vegas Downs, his vision for a “state-of the-art” track (a 1 1/4 mile dirt and 1 1/8 mile turf oval) with a membership model offering exclusive access to private clubhouses and ownership opportunities, similar in effect to what's in place in Hong Kong.It would be built at a yet-to-be decided plot of land at the Southern end of Las Vegas, between the M Hotel and Mandalay Bay–one of the few portions of Las Vegas where large enough parcels of land still go begging.As Meyers sees it, Las Vegas Downs would host a meet from the start of November through the start of April, when that quarter of the Mojave desert is at its coolest, for a total of 60-days of racing.The average daily card would come with $1.5 million in purses, with monies stumped up by casinos and other Vegas-based gaming operators eager for “heads in beds,” as Meyers puts it.“We're not going to compete with the casinos,” says Meyers, explaining how the track would have no casino or hotel attached.“They will come to our place for three hours and have an amazing time and spend a lot of money. Then they go back to their hotel to gamble, eat and sleep there,” he said.The five-month winter meet would be punctuated with what Meyers calls three signature events-collaborations, he hopes, with other global jurisdictions.“For instance, I talked to the Hong Kong Hockey Club about having certain weeks, like during the Chinese New Year in January and February, when we would have something like the Hong Kong Jockey Club Handicap,” said Meyers.As for logistics, the horses would be vanned in every race-day from a purpose-built winter training center on the outskirts of Vegas, what could also double, he said, as a permanent horse sanctuary.Meyers is eyeing up property in Pahrump (close to the California border), Mesquite (towards the Arizona border), or Cold Creek (north of Vegas) where a herd of wild horses roam.“It would be about 40 to 50 minutes, potentially an hour away. That's where the horses would have a winter training facility. They would come down to the track, like in Hong Kong. Then, once they're done [racing], they leave and go back about an hour away,” said Meyers.“We want to make this state of the art, like what they're doing in Qiddiya for horses,” said Meyers, pointing to the new racing and training center in Saudi Arabia. “It has a veterinary hospital. It's like you and I going to a spa at the Four Seasons.”What's more, Meyers believes all this could be in place for the first race to be run on Nov. 1, 2029.“I've always had in my mind when I first started that we'd go in 2028. But that's probably too fast,” he said.Meyers is CEO and founder of Hilt Ventures, which operates a network of cryptocurrency kiosks where customers can purchase Bitcoin or other digital currencies with a debit card or cash.While Meyers calls himself a racing neophyte, marriage sees him at least rubbing shoulders with the sport.He's married to the daughter of Claudette Pais, former director and organizer of stockholder relations for Hollywood Park, and former member of the committee and subcommittee for off-track wagering for the California Horse Racing Board, among other industry positions.“I keep abreast of all sports, but I'm not in the business. So, I said, 'You know what? I'm going start looking into this.' That was last August,” Meyers said. “First of all, I started researching: why was there never a track in Las Vegas?”Since then, he's been around the world speaking with racing officials in Hong Kong, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Ascot and the Victoria Racing Club. He's also picked the brains of track operators closer to home. The Turf Paradise crew for one, and some California-based stakeholders.“I've also been talking to the architects who are building the new Belmont. They're doing some really cool stuff and it's going be beautiful. But you know, that had to be redone from the existing track,” he said. “We have a blank slate.”So, why Vegas?One is what he describes as a favorable regulatory environment.“I feel like Nevada and Las Vegas is really open for business and really interested in supporting commerce,” he said. “This is what LA used to be when I first came out there in the '80s and 90s.”Another reason, Meyers said, are the question marks over the future of horse racing West of the Rockies, which he believes could open a window of opportunity in Nevada.But even if the industry maintains its current footprint out West well into the future, he sees Las Vegas Downs as a sister track to the likes of Santa Anita and Turf Paradise, which both operate winter meets.“I think that a rising tide lifts all boats,” said Meyers. “This track is not a competitor. I believe we can be a creative and we can help other tracks.”To get the whole thing launched, however, Meyers needs to overcome two major hurdles. The first concerns money.“We believe we can get someone to own the land and lease it back to us, which is what they do, by the way, in the casino industry,” said Meyers.Excluding land, the facility would cost around $550 million (which includes $100 million for the track alone), while the training center would be around $50 million.Meyers said he has around half the funding already secured. As for the other half, Meyers has an investment approach geared around a membership model, hopefully bringing around $240 million.“Being able to offer that to multiple accredited investors where it's not just one billionaire, one company coming in and doing that, we're trying to do it in a unique more entrepreneurial way,” he said.The other major obstacle is a legislative one. Right now, a gaming license comes with a requirement to maintain a minimum 200-room hotel, bar and 24-hour restaurant.What Meyers is seeking-a facility offering 24-hour gambling on horse racing only-would require a change in legislation.The project is a huge ask, especially when overall tourism to Vegas is down. Though Meyers believes the city continues to prove an attractive mecca to high rollers.It's a huge ask, especially at a time when horse racing appears to be in a state of contraction. But racing jurisdictions around the globe that appear to be thriving, said Meyers, offer a new blueprint here in the U.S.“The last literally eight, nine months, I've been traveling the world just trying to understand the sport and what we could do,” said Meyers. “What excites me is I'm not creating anything new or innovative. I'm just taking what people are doing outside the U.S. and applying some of that here to the U.S. market.” The post A Racetrack in Las Vegas? 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