Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, November 19th. I'm Mac Watson. This newscast is "Brought to you by the University of Wyoming Center on Aging. Did you know that 1 in 3 Wyoming adults have pre-diabetes, and most don't realize it? Are you tough enough to know your numbers? Take the quiz at: Find Out WY dot org."

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Secretary of State Chuck Gray claims Gov. Mark Gordon isn't including money to advertise a property tax ballot initiative in his biennial budget. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Governor Gordon says the Secretary managed to fulfill his publication requirements before without extra money.

"Secretary Gray, within like 19 hours of Gordon's proposed budget plan, was lamenting why? You know, I'm sure this a scheme against the law-mandated notifications I have to do about the ballot initiative we have coming up, which is to reduce property taxes yet again. And so he has this whole idea, like the governor is curbing the notifications I have to do for this. And the governor fired back in his own comment…'you didn't have problems with the notifications you were required to do in 2024. You didn't have an extra request at that time.' So the governor was like, 'I'm just kind of letting you lead and going with what you've managed before.'"

Gray's office is budgeted in 2025-26 for 9-and-a-half million. The secretary asked for almost $10-and-a-half million for the upcoming biennium.

Gordon is proposing Gray's office receive $200,000 less than requested.

Read the full story HERE.

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Wyoming is bucking a national trend by growing its horse racing industry. But as Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jeans reports, legislators want more control of the gaming terminals that support its big purses amid complaints the state is looking too much like Montana.

"People feel like there are too many of these gaming terminals across the state. And now that is not just historic horse racing terminals, but they're also talking about those terminals like cowboy skill games, they all look like slot machines, right? They're completely different, but they look the same pretty much to the average person. And so one of the things that's been happening is cowboy skill games have been popping up in grocery stores…those kind of things have people kind of second guessing the horse racing setup in Wyoming. The other key point, I think a lot of these communities feel like they don't have enough control. Like Cheyenne has 10 gaming facilities, and not one of them was approved by the local city cancel."

Nationwide, the horse racing industry has been in a steady decline. But not in Wyoming. The newly merged joint venture between Wyoming Downs and 307 Horse Racing nearly doubled attendance at their Evanston track this year to 1,700 people per day on average.

Read the full story HERE.

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Wyoming lawmakers advanced five bills Tuesday to tighten control over slot-machine-like gaming, citing its explosive growth. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that industry leaders defended the machines as vital to funding live horse racing and rural economic activity, but the management council wants to pump the brakes.

"The management council is the legislature's administrative arm. So they sent out this task force to really look at the gaming statutes and what can be improved. And the task force came back like we got to tighten, we got to tighten our definitions of criminal gambling. We gotta give local governments a potential k