Glue Factory: State Senate Rejects OTB Bailout

Sorry, baby, no OTB in your future

The State Senate failed to pass a measure rescuing the city's Off Track Betting operation, which has struggled for years. The Times Union reports, "The 29 to 21 voted proceeded mostly on party lines, as leaders of the Senate Democratic conference pushed approval the bill, which was drafted by Gov. David Paterson and passed the Assembly late last month. The bill failed because it did not have 32 yes votes, the bare majority needed for passage."

Republicans weren't fond of the bill, and Democratic State Senators Kevin Parker (legal problems) and Pedro Espada Jr. (Pedro problems). State Senator Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) said, "A no vote on this bill lights the wick to a stick of dynamite that will blow up our racing industry. Today it's New York City OTB, tomorrow it's Nassau, Monticello and other regions. We owe this to the employees of OTB."

Over 50 OTB locations in NYC will close and hundreds will be laid off. One worker told the Daily News, "It's horrible. I am a single mother with three kids. This is how I support my family." Her next plans? ""Unemployment I guess…there are no jobs out there."

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By Jen Chung in News on December 7, 2010 6:21 PM

Comments [rss]

ProcedureTurn

This place ruins lives.

JenChungsBaby

I speak for the baby in the picture above when I say "Thank goodness."

jgonzz

Where are all of those chain smoking medicated stale piss smelling greasy self-imposed shut ins supposed to go now?

harrisgraber

I don't think the state should be involved in gambling. Gambling is a vice that has ruined many people.

However, this is bad for the employees of OTB at a time like this. I would rather have seen OTB fold in better days when those people could get jobs more easily.

BotanistPrime

We could pay all laid off employees triple their salary for the rest of their lives and still be saving billions. Not that NYS will... but I think they should find a way to assist laid off employees at least for a bit.

Peter Rosa

My, ahem, bet is that a way will be found to keep the OTB parlors open.

Mordicai

I can understand the theory that says LEGAL gambling is better than ILLEGAL gambling. Yeah, I get that, but not enough to want to SUBSIDIZE it. Seriously, this is the crap we have to deal with? How is the OTB not already a distant & embarrassing memory?

ides_of_march

The government can't even run a legal bookie operation properly. Yet uneducated goombas from the Bronx can make a bundle at it.

pinball29

Im shocked, shocked! Not about the loss of a money-losing corrupt patronage cesspool, but about the fact that the NYS Legislature finally did something sensible. Now they need to cut off funding of the hundreds of millions of dollars they say will be needed to end this ridiculous entity.