February 19, 2008
OTB is a Longshot to Stay Open
After years of warnings, the city's Off Track Betting business may be out of luck as Mayor Bloomberg said the city may pull its funding and let the gambling business close. He told the OTB Board of Directors, "The City simply cannot take dollars away from schools and hospitals to pay for a gambling operation. We have no business subsidizing betting parlors at the expense of City taxpayers, particularly at a time when we're asking all agencies to cut their budgets." And what's more, the board agreed and approved the shutdown!
The OTB, which has 1500 employees, was started in 1970 to raise revenue for the city and state. Even though it makes $1 billion a year, a "state mandated formula" requires that a portion of the revenue - not profit - is distributed to, as the city's press release puts it, "help prop up the on-track State racing industry." Bloomberg wants to the state to kick in more funding, instead of putting it on the city's shoulders. He even said a just-received letter from Empire State Development Corporation president Patrick Foye as too late, pointing out that the State Legislature ignored OTB when passing a racing bill.
The State Legislature could still act to keep OTB open. Former mayor Rudy Giuliani tried to sell OTB; he called it, "the only bookie in the world that lost money."
Photograph of a Chinatown OTB parlor by jpchan on Flickr
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like taking candy from the poor, er i mean a baby!
How about you start off with cutting the SHAM recruitment programs for city agencies. Tens of millions spent so we can get more Boyz from 'da Hood and neighborhood felons to walk around carrying guns. Doesn't make sense.
IF you have ever been to an regular OTB it is a depressing place. Sort of like the DMV, but more depressing. The one upside of OTB, just like the lottery, is taking something that was once illegal and making it legal under the aegis of the state instead of shady criminals. Wait, there isn't really any difference between the two except one is elected.
I want my OTB.
Wait, I'm confused - the CITY runs OTB? And it's a LOSING proposition? How on Earth has that not been closed down sooner?
There are too many jobs that will be lost if the OTB closes. Rework the state contract and downsize a little.
OTB depressing? Not if you hit a nice trifecta or superfecta or a $3,000,000 pick six.
Your odds are much better at hitting a pick 6 than hitting the lottery. Some of the OTB establishments have nice restaurants. Those who knock it should try O'neil's Seaport Restaurant, The Playwright, The Inside Track or The Winners Circle. Go Baby Go!
Mayor No Fun is at it again.
Betting on the ponies is great fun. One of the cheapest entertainments around. But it's better at the tracks.
OTB is for old men taking a break from old men bars. They stink of fetid cigars, Folger's coffee breath, and slept-in, moth-eaten cardigans. And god forbid one hits an exacta box on a long shot. "Next stop, Harvey's. A round of Miller Lite on me."
Wait for me.
Taking OTBs out of the city would be like taking the flypaper out of a latrine.
OTB is a NY classic. To lose it would be another crime and open up the floodgates for organized crime to get back in the pony betting business.
If the city wants to get out of losing money at OTB without losing its urban flavor or opening the door to organized crime, they could certainly license out the right to run OTB locations. I'm sure there's some savvy businessman/woman who could find a way to make it profitable.
I'm not much of a gambler but I would hate to see OTB disappear. I used to work in a building down near Wall St. that had an OTB underneath it. Whenever I would go out for a cigarette, I would inevitably end up smoking with the old men hanging around the OTB, and they were also a high spot of my day. They would wander from the bar next door to the OTB and back again and fill me on all the block gossip.
The real issue is that OTB just doesn't make money. Internet gambling, video games and all the CT and upstate casinos, have really cut into OTB over the last decade. The only shot would be to get hipsters to think OTB was ironically cool and 'retro'. I'm giving 7 t 10 on the Sunday Times doing a feature on the LES OTB scene.
I, for one am GLAD to see OTB shutting down. My father is a regular at the OTB in Chinatown (pictured above) and I'm so embarrassed that one of those nasty old guys is my own father! I know this isn't a solution to gamblers since they'll find other ways to gamble but I'm really really happy that he'll no longer have that establishment supporting is addiction. THANK YOU MAYOR!
The OTB on 31st St. in Astoria is a nice hangout...if you're an alcoholic and haven't bathed in three weeks.
LOSING BET
Farewell to OTB,
Always a mixed bag,
A pricey thoroughbred
That turned into a nag.
Everything Toby says about OTB parlors is 100% true.
God, I'll miss them.
Blahblah is right. Another incursion of the nanny state being carried out by a rich guy who never spent time on the streets.
Everything Toby says about OTB parlors is 100% true.
God, I'll miss them.
Blahblah is right. Another incursion of the nanny state being carried out by a rich guy who never spent time on the streets.
Everything Toby says about OTB parlors is 100% true.
God, I'll miss them.
Blahblah is right. Another incursion of the nanny state being carried out by a rich guy who never spent time on the streets.
Great, more room for banks and Starbucks.