FLORENCE, Ky. — After years of renovations, Turfway Park Racing and Gaming opened its gaming facility in Florence on Thursday. While live horse racing won’t return until later this year, hundreds of guests tried their hands at the facility’s new historical horse racing machines.

Jodie Stiner and Toni Buttery were among them. The two women said Lady Luck had also joined them, and they were hopeful she’d stick around.

“Luck’s been on my side,” Buttery said, laughing. “Luck’s always on my side.”

“We are seeing things we don’t have, and we’ve never played. That’s exciting,” Stiner said. “You know, I might take 40 or 50 dollars with me, and that’s about the same as dinner and a movie.”

840 historical horse racing machines are now available for people in Northern Kentucky to try their own luck. On Sept. 9, Turfway will open the largest simulcast area in Kentucky for off-track betting.

And on Nov. 30, live racing will return to the new track for the first time in a long time at the historic site.

As recently as May, the gaming facility was still very much under construction, as Turfway Park Racing and Gaming General Manager Chip Bach explained.

“I was sweating it just like everybody else. Construction people told me it all comes together at the end very quickly, and that’s what happened. It seemed like somebody pushed a magic button a week before we were open,” Bach said. “We couldn’t be happier about how this place looks at 1 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. It’s wonderful.”

Turfway Park got its start as Latonia Race Track in 1959. When casinos came to the Cincinnati area in the 1980s and 1990s, they drew attention away from the racetrack and down to the river, Bach said.

“Our place kind of fell apart. We didn’t have the resources to keep it up like we wanted to. And our racing product fell off,” he said.

Churchill Downs came along and purchased Turfway in 2019. The decision was made to have live races during winter months, as to not compete with other tracks. Race dates will be from the first week of December to the first week of April. The legalization of historic horse racing machines gave a more clear vision of what the facility could be during the other months.

A few years, and $240 million later, Bach said he hopes the facility is on its way to joining the ranks of other historic race tracks around the state.

Many people, Stiner and Buttery, would like to see Kentucky’s laws further relaxed to allow for a full casino experience at places like Turfway.

“I think it should be something they pull in. All these other places have it. Why not have more revenue like that? So they can do more for their communities,” Buttery said.

“If they only knew how many people in Kentucky were going to Indiana, and going to Ohio, and giving them their money,” Stiner added.

It’s something Bach said he thinks about, too. He said he’d like to see a full slate of gaming in the future, as he still has to compete with the casinos that led to what seemed to be Turfway’s demise.

“The more product we can offer, the more competitive we can be,” Bach said.

For now, if the first day was any sign, many people will be happy to spend their money on the machines currently in the facility, and hope to take some cash home as well.

Horse racing is a sizeable piece of Kentucky’s economy. Gov. Andy Beshear said the industry brings in $3.4 billion each year on its own.