How Indiana racinos came about
Indiana legalized pari-mutuel wagering in 1989, and Hoosier Park in Anderson ran its first race on September 1, 1994. A second track, Indiana Downs near Shelbyville, followed and held its first season in 2003. For years both tracks lived on wagering alone, competing with riverboat casinos that had been operating on Lake Michigan and the Ohio River since the mid-1990s.
That changed in 2007, when lawmakers allowed up to 2,000 slot machines at each track in return for a large upfront license fee. Hoosier Park’s casino opened on June 2, 2008, and Shelbyville’s, then branded Indiana Live!, on March 13, 2009. The general idea is set out in the what is a racino guide.
Regulators, revenue and the minimum age
Two agencies share the job. The Indiana Horse Racing Commission licenses the tracks, sets race dates and oversees the wagering, while the Indiana Gaming Commission regulates the casino floors, the tables and the sportsbooks. Monthly reports from the gaming commission list each racino separately, including machine counts, table counts and taxes paid.
Casino revenue at Indiana racinos is taxed under racino rules that differ from those for the riverboats, and the law directs a share of gaming money to horse racing purses and to breed development programs for Indiana-bred horses. That transfer is the reason the tracks pushed for slots, and it keeps purses higher than wagering alone would support.
Casino and sportsbook play at both properties is restricted to guests aged 21 and older, the same as at Indiana’s other casinos. Live racing itself is family-friendly, and children can watch from the apron or grandstand with an adult. Visitors who set a budget before arriving, and stop when it is spent, tend to enjoy a race night more.
Indiana racinos at a glance
| Venue | City | Racing | Gaming |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harrah’s Hoosier Park | Anderson | Harness | 1,235 machines, 40 tables, sportsbook |
| Horseshoe Indianapolis | Shelbyville | Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse | 1,489 machines, 85 tables, poker, sportsbook |
Machine and table counts come from the Indiana Gaming Commission’s August 2026 report. In that month Horseshoe Indianapolis won about $24.4 million on its machines and $4.8 million on tables, while Hoosier Park won about $20.4 million and $2.4 million, which makes the Shelbyville property the larger of the two Indiana racinos by both measures.
Harrah’s Hoosier Park in Anderson
Hoosier Park is the harness half of the pair, racing Standardbreds on a seven-eighths-mile dirt oval with about 1,200 grandstand seats. Its 2026 meet runs from February 12 to November 28, the longest live season in the state, with a 5:30 p.m. first post. The track has hosted the Breeders Crown three times and draws the Hambletonian from 2027.
The casino is a single-level, 24-hour floor with a Caesars Sportsbook, Sulky’s Restaurant & Bar and the 900-seat Terrace Showroom. There is no hotel on the property. The Anderson track also runs off-track betting rooms in downtown Indianapolis and in New Haven near Fort Wayne, and the state counts their results together with the racino’s own.
Horseshoe Indianapolis in Shelbyville
Horseshoe Indianapolis offers the only Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing in Indiana, on a one-mile dirt track with a seven-eighths-mile turf course inside it. The 2026 season runs from April 7 to November 13. Its biggest day is the Grade 3 Indiana Derby in July, run alongside the Indiana Oaks, with Quarter Horse cards on Saturday mornings.
The gaming floor covers more than 100,000 square feet and includes a World Series of Poker room, a Caesars Sportsbook and Jack Binion’s Steak among its restaurants. Like Anderson, Shelbyville has no hotel of its own, and Caesars points visitors to partner hotels nearby. An affiliated off-track betting room operates in Clarksville, across the Ohio River from Louisville.
The 2026 Indiana horse racing calendar
Horse racing in Indiana follows a long arc. Harness racing opens in Anderson in mid-February, flat racing starts in Shelbyville in early April, and both tracks run through the summer before closing within two weeks of each other in November. Simulcast betting continues all winter in both grandstands and at the off-track betting rooms.
| Track | 2026 dates | Breeds |
|---|---|---|
| Harrah’s Hoosier Park | February 12 – November 28 | Harness |
| Horseshoe Indianapolis | April 7 – November 13 | Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse |
| County fair circuit | June – August | Harness |
The summer fair circuit adds short harness programs at county fairgrounds such as Converse, Corydon, Frankfort, Shelbyville, Portland, Goshen and Connersville, plus four days at Anderson in June. Those cards are part of Indiana’s breeding and sires program, though they are not racinos. National dates appear on the horse racing schedule page.
Table games, sports betting and the 2019 law
For their first decade, Indiana racinos could offer only machines, including electronic versions of blackjack and roulette. A 2019 gaming law opened the door to live dealers, and both properties started dealing in January 2020, shortly before pandemic closures. The same year Indiana legalized sports betting, which began in September 2019.
Caesars has since spent heavily on the casinos. A roughly $32 million expansion of the Shelbyville floor was completed in 2021, and work on a larger gaming area in Anderson started in 2022, adding slots, tables, a high-limit space and new bars. Neither project included a hotel, which both sites still lack.
Racetrack casinos in neighboring states
Indiana sits among several racino states. Ohio has seven racetrack casinos running video lottery terminals, including Belterra Park near Cincinnati and Miami Valley Gaming near Lebanon. Both are reachable from Shelbyville or Anderson in a day trip, and both pair Thoroughbred or harness racing with machines run by the Ohio Lottery rather than a gaming commission.
Kentucky’s tracks use historical horse racing machines rather than slots, which gives them a different gaming floor from the casinos in Indiana. Illinois has added a casino at Fairmount Park near St. Louis. The Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois pages list every track across Indiana’s borders, with dates and gaming details.