Ohio Harness Horsemen's Association

Racing to the Finish

January 4, 2010

No more subsidies or bailouts for New York's TB tracks
Horse racing in New York is flat-out bankrupt - and will die this spring without emergency action by Gov. Paterson and the Legislature.

No exaggeration. The long decline in popularity of equine competition and the gambling that supports it has reached bottom. There isn't enough money to keep the nags running.

The city's Off-Track Betting Corp. has filed for bankruptcy and is on course to close by April. And the president of the New York Racing Association, operator of the Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga tracks, says the organization will be broke by June.

In an unconscionable act of extortion, NYRA, beneficiary of past bailouts, threatened to cancel the Belmont Stakes while balking at a state audit.

So it is a day of reckoning for racing, an industry that supports thousands of jobs upstate while suffering dwindling interest, generating less and less revenue and requiring massive bailouts.

The latest scheme would prop up the industry by converting Aqueduct into a casino gambling parlor. In effect, Gov. Paterson and legislative leaders are moving to reward a failing business by drawing money from city residents' pockets and shipping it north to keep the horsy set in clover.

The politicians are determined to ram the deal through because Albany would also get a fast cash infusion. It's a desperate and cynical deal. Question: If casino gambling is a good idea for the city, is Aqueduct the best location for maximizing revenue? Only if you are the racing association.

Overshadowing all is OTB's bankruptcy. Mayor Bloomberg unloaded the operation on the state, and Paterson drafted businessman Sandy Frucher to rescue it. Frucher is using bankruptcy to slash costs by shedding more than half of OTB's workers and shutting most parlors.

He envisions ATM-type betting kiosks and wagering machines placed in bars and restaurants. He hopes smarter marketing would expand clientele, and he would finance a reorganization, including severance costs, by selling $250 million in bonds to investors.

While Frucher's plan is only beginning to come into focus, it's a serious effort that demands swift, intense legislative attention. Here's what Paterson and the Legislature must do:

--Rule out, as Frucher has, subsidizing NYRA, OTB and racing with a dime of public money.
--Decide OTB's fate and the question of casino gambling in one package. --Drop the idea of a casino at Aqueduct. The area does not need two money-losing tracks - Aqueduct and Belmont - within 8 miles of each other. Aqueduct should be closed and the huge property devoted to public purposes, such as housing. Racing and casino gambling, if there's to be such, should be consolidated at Belmont.
--Give the public full say over how many OTB betting machines would appear in the city - and where they would be permitted.
--Bar using those machines for wagers on computer-generated horses in "virtual" races.
--Establish a once-and-for-all formula for sharing OTB revenue so NYRA understands that racing has no further call on taxpayers.
--Wrap all six of the state's local OTB operations into the deal.
--Scrutinize Frucher's projection that closing OTB would entail $500 million in shutdown expenses - and consider doing just that

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Racing to the Finish