NYC to shutter OTB

NJ betting parlor opens on day that NYC votes to get rid of OTB

Board Unanimously votes to shut down NYC OTB. The NYC OTB has a handle of close to a Billion dollars. It routinely nets $125 million but runs a deficit of approximately $12 Million dollars due to greedy Bureaucrats in the State house.

NJ however is going in the opposite direction by opening betting shops (NYT - reg req’d).

The OTB nets $125 Million and yet runs a $12 to 15 Million deficit due to idiotic taxation, and payouts to tracks.

The city’s struggling Off-Track Betting operation will close two branches this month and approved a plan to shut down entirely by the middle of June, upping the ante in its ongoing battle with the state over a revenue-sharing agreement that the mayor and OTB officials say is driving the enterprise out of business.

It’s not struggling it’s being killed off by Bureaucrats.

NYCOTB is technically in the black, but because of state law must turn over so much of its revenue to the state that it has been running in the red and using its reserves to make ends meet, city officials said.

It’s a classic example of killing the ‘Golden Goose’. It’s just stupid. However it’s typical of Governments who feel they can tax with impunity.

This also proves that taxation can kill a business.

“Running a betting parlor is not one of government’s essential functions, and propping up a betting parlor has to be one of the worst ideas I have ever heard,” Bloomberg told the OTB board yesterday. “Albany has continually ignored our calls for action, leaving us no choice.”

Running any business is NOT a government function, period. Killing off businesses is not a function — although some feel it is — of government either.

“This shows the city is serious,” said Councilman David Weprin of Queens, chairman of the Finance Committee, who has introduced a resolution calling on the state Legislature to change the revenue-sharing formula. “This isn’t just an idle threat, and the ball is in the state’s court now.”

Why didn’t you fight to keep more money when the drop — the money that is paid to the book for booking bets aka juice — and the handle was up and you were building a reserve? Could it be that you did not want admit that over-taxation was a bad thing?

The state Legislature and Gov. Eliot Spitzer last week announced a deal to extend the New York Racing Association’s exclusive franchise to operate Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga racetracks, forgive $120 million in debt NYRA owed the state, and provide another $105 million in state aid to the racing association. Bloomberg and OTB officials say Spitzer and legislative leaders should have addressed the ongoing problems with the state’s six OTB operations when it put together the NYRA deal.

Closing the OTB you are going to hurt the tracks even more.

The city’s OTB operation takes in $1 billion in wagers annually, generating about 40 percent of all racing wagers statewide. As a result, the closing of NYCOTB could create a ripple effect in the racing industry, said David Cornstein, chairman of the NYCOTB board of directors.

That’s money that is not going to make it’s way to the track. Which means that once again the State is sticking a knife in the back of the Horse Racing Industry. Just more proof that bureaucrats are clue-less about business or how their actions hurt people.

“This will devastate the racing industry in this state,” Cornstein said, “and have horrendous implications for the sport throughout the country.”

No it won’t. I can assure that Kentucky, California, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and Illinois will be happy to take the horses and the races for their tracks.

“We believe the ultimate closure of New York City OTB without state approval would be inconsistent with state law,” said Patrick Foye, downstate chairman of the Empire State Development Corp.

That’s the typical attitude of the bureaucrats that they can pass laws and force people to suck up losses so they can pretend to be doing their job.

City officials maintain that the Off-Track Betting board has the authority to do what it did on Tuesday by voting to shut down OTB’s operations. They say that other possible options, like selling Off-Track Betting to another operator, would require the Legislature’s approval.

Looks like another fight between City and State is on the horizon. More proof that Government is the problem and not the answer.

NYT asks: Is this the end of OTB? NYT Editorial says that Bloomberg doesn’t have the guts to eliminate 1500 Union Jobs. The NYT is frequently wrong.

They instituted a shamefully piggish system where the state was divided into six regions, each with its own generously staffed public benefit corporation. Each of the six regions — New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Catskill, Capitol and Western — has its own executive, legal and marketing departments, its own technology systems and now its own phone and Internet-betting operations.

Sometimes the NYT actually gets something right. Funny they never see these same issues in the rest of Government, in which it runs rampant.

Tags: horse racing, otb, nyc, nyc otb, new jersey otb, aqueduct, michael bloomberg, eliot spitzer, saratoga, nyra