Disqualified from a statewide competition to develop a slot parlor, owners of Plainridge Racecourse are pursuing a quick sale of the track in a last-ditch effort to keep the site alive in the slot machine sweepstakes and preserve live harness racing in Massachusetts.
The Plainville property has drawn “significant interest” from investors in the days since state casino regulators ruled the current ownership group unsuitable to hold a state casino license, according to a person briefed on the discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly. Talks with potential new owners are active and ongoing.
The biggest obstacle to a sale may be time. The state gambling commission has set an Oct. 4 deadline for final plans for each slot parlor proposal, and any new owner would have to undergo an extensive background check by state investigators.
Whether the commission would accept a new owner at this stage of the contest would depend on several factors, including the qualifications of any new applicant, said Stephen Crosby, the commission’s chairman. “In the abstract, we’re supportive of the racing industry and supportive of competition,” Crosby said.
It was the background check that tripped up Plainridge, the first applicant to apply for a slot machine license in 2012.
The track at the junction of Interstate 495 and Route 1 had long been considered a leading contender, until state investigators discovered that former Plainridge president Gary T. Piontkowski took about $1.4 million in cash from the track’s money room in regular small withdrawals over several years.
Investigators said Plainridge recorded the withdrawals in its accounting books as money Piontkowski owed the business. When the loans were not repaid, Plainridge recharacterized the withdrawals as distributions to Piontkowski, state investigators said.
The investigators revealed the withdrawals to the track’s major partners, who said they knew nothing about them. The partners forced Piontkowski out in April and instituted new internal controls, but the news proved extremely damaging to the track’s slot parlor application. The track’s response was “way too little, way too late,” the panel said in its decision to disqualify the owners, which was released Monday.
Track officials have said for years that the state’s only operating harness racing track could not continue indefinitely without slot machines, and the failure of Plainridge’s slot bid has devastated the state’s harness racing community.
Plainville selectmen in July OK’d a deal with the track setting out terms under which the town would accept a gambling business at the site. Residents are set to vote on the proposal at a Sept. 10 referendum.
The election, for now, is still on, said Plainville Town Administrator Joseph Fernandes.
He plans to meet with Plainridge officials Monday, “to see if there is anything they can offer as encouragement to keep the election on.”
The failure of the Plainridge bid leaves four developers in the hunt for the slots license.
Three companies have passed background checks and have been formally approved as bidders: The Cordish Cos., seeking to build in Leominster; an affiliate of Rush Street Gaming, which has proposed a slot parlor in Millbury; and Raynham Park, the simulcast betting parlor and former dog track.
Mark Arsenault can be reached at marsenault@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @bostonglobemark.