Deja Vu

April 19, 2010

Got Your Horse Right Here

Tags:

bailout,

bankruptcy,

Charles Dickens,

England,

gambling,

New York City,

racehorses

2010: New York’s betting shops are safe for the time being. After the failure of a bailout proposal by Governor Paterson, the ailing New York City Off-Track Betting Corp. was expected to shut down this week, but was saved by one of its creditors, the New York Racing Association, and allowed to operate as it undergoes bankruptcy.

The turnaround triggered frustration among some who took part in negotiations involving the Legislature and Gov. Paterson over the state's racing industry.

“They cried poverty one week and the next week they say they can keep their doors open for another year?” said Austin Shafran, spokesman for the state Senate's Democratic majority. “This demonstrates an overwhelming need for an honest and clear accounting of OTB's finances and operations before any taxpayer dollars spent.”

One of the OTB's largest creditors is the New York Racing Association, which runs the state's tracks. NYRA has threatened to cancel the Belmont Stakes—the third leg of the fabled Triple Crown—because of its financial woes.

A NYRA spokesman had no comment on the OTB extension.

Paterson yesterday said OTB should do “whatever is legal and feasible” to stay open.

Assemblyman Gary Pretlow (D-Westchester)—chairman of the Racing and Wagering Committee—said he suspected OTB wouldn't follow through on its threat.

“With this extended time, I think they can now look at some real cost-cutting measures to make OTB a financially viable operation,” he said.

Patrons at a midtown Manhattan OTB were happy at post time.

“Thank God they're staying open for another year,” Victor Rosario, 64, said. “I come here every day.”

“Sometimes I win,” the Astoria, Queens, resident said. “Sometimes I lose.”

1852: The Victorian betting house was often a simple storefront, decorated with a few knickknacks of the sporting life. But the Londoners who frequented them had a tendency to get pretty rowdy, as Charles Dickens observed for the magazine Household Words.

It is necessary that the noble sportsman should have a handy place provided for him, where lists of the running horses and of the latest state of the odds are kept, and where he can lay out his money (or somebody else’s) on the happy animals at whom the Prophetic eye has cast a knowing wink. Presto! Betting shops spring up in every street! There is a demand at all the brokers’ shops for old, fly-blown, colored prints of race-horses, and for any odd folio volumes that have the appearance of Ledgers. Two such prints in any shop-window, and one such book on any shop-counter, will make a complete betting office, bank, and all.

The betting shop may be a tobacconist’s, thus suddenly transformed; or it may be nothing but a betting shop. The Institution may stoop to bets of single shillings, or may reject lower ventures than half-crowns, or may draw the line of demarcation between itself and the snobs at five shillings, or seven-and-sixpence, or half a sovereign, or even (but very rarely indeed), at a pound. Its note of the little transaction may be a miserable scrap of limp pasteboard with a wretchedly printed form, worse filled up; or, it may be a genteelly tinted card, addressed “To the Cashier of the Aristocratic Club,” and authorizing that important officer to pay the bearer two pounds fifteen shillings, if Greenhorn wins the Fortunatus’s Cup; and to be very particular to pay it the day after the race. But, whatever the Betting-shop be, it has only to be somewhere—anywhere, so people pass and repass—and the rapid youth of England, with its slang intelligence perpetually broad awake and its weather eye continually open, will walk in and deliver up its money, like the helpless Innocent that it is.

• Email /
• Print /
• Comment now