Authorities have cited three people for illegal gambling following a raid at the annual Labor Day horse races at the Parowan Racetrack and vowed to keep a close watch on gambling at other county fairs.
"We'll be there," said Sgt. Brad Blair of the state Narcotics and Liquor Law Enforcement Agency. "We had no idea this was such a problem."On Monday, two Iron County sheriff's deputies and three state investigators placed a $2 wager and received a $10 payoff, then cited Mike Jones, Jackie Freeman and fair chairwoman Joan Mortensen for class B misdemeanor gambling and confiscated about $486.
The raid was not the first for the Parowan track. On Memorial Day, the sheriff's department put a stop to gambling after an anonymous complaint.
Mortensen said that in most small towns in southern Utah, races are financially dependent on the optional claiming races.
"At any time, any person with a ticket can buy the winning horse for $10,000," she said. "The tickets are not printed by us."
Over the past 12 years, about $50,000 in race proceeds have gone to improvements at the fairgrounds, Mortensen said.
"The money made at the races for the Iron County Fair has always gone back into the track and grounds improvements. That (money confiscated) could have been used toward paving the parking lot for the exhibition building," she said.
Blair said his office went easy on the track this time, but that future violations could mean charges of felony racketeering.
"We had no idea this was such a big problem," he said. "We took this pretty lightly this time."