Arena Leisure is putting together a consortium to bid for one of the 16 new casino licences being made available for the government and said it would begin building it early in 2009 if its bid was successful. The operator of seven racecourses and a quarter of UK horseracing fixtures wants to attach a casino to its Wolverhampton racecourse, which last year staged more than a third of Arena’s fixtures, and will be a leading contender for the city’s casino licence.