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Crypto’s “Horse Betting” Loophole
The banking cartel won’t know what hit them
Teeka Tiwari & Houston Molnar
May 08, 2026
“Sir, this isn’t a casino. It’s a horse betting track.”
I took one look around me and laughed. 88 Fortunes, Super 7, Wheel of Fortune… I counted dozens of Vegas-style slot machines. I didn’t see a single horse.
I was in Kentucky with friends, and they wanted to try their luck at the blackjack tables. Except we couldn’t find them.
That’s when the woman in a black vest and bow tie informed me we were not at a casino… and what looked like regular slot machines were in fact horse betting machines.
“Pull the lever,” she told me, pointing to one close by.
Then I saw it. At the very top of the screen, so faint that none of us had noticed it before, a group of digital horses galloped around an invisible racetrack.
We laughed about it for the rest of the night. But the next day, I did some research…
Casinos are technically illegal in Kentucky. Rather than let a multibillion-dollar opportunity go to waste, operators found a loophole. In 2011, they slapped some digital horses at the top of the slot machines and called it a horse betting track.
It was a big hit. By 2024, Kentucky’s HHR machines had processed close to $10 billion in bets. Here’s how the Kentucky Law Journal explains the loophole:
These machines flash, spin, and accept rapid wagers in a manner closely resembling traditional slot machines. But despite these similarities, Kentucky law does not classify these devices as casino games. Rather, they are treated as wagers placed on previously run horse races – known as Historical Horse Racing.
I’m telling you this story because it shows that, when the money is big enough, industries find a way to redefine the words if they can’t redefine the laws.
The banks figured this out long before crypto did. And as I’ll show you in a moment, crypto is running the same play against them now.
Wall Street Wrote This Playbook