BOSSERT: GIVE RACING BACK TO THE TRACKS
In a very descriptive article, Jerry Bossert has some choice words for the NYCOTB controversy. Instead of mucking it up with our writing, I’ll let the words speak for themselves.
"New York City Off Track Betting, the nasty parasite that some say sucks the blood out of horse racing…"
"Imagine if you ran a factory that produces shoes. You ship them to stores to be sold, but would get paid back only if the shoe store made a profit. This is what NYCOTB’s ridiculous plan is."
"End this political nightmare and give racing back to the tracks."
Click here for the rest of Jerry Bossert’s column
Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think.
Tags: bradford cummings, Jerry Bossert, New York City Off Track Betting, NYCOTB, Paulick Report
January 8th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Let the mob run OTB. They are more trustworthy than politicians and lawyers. Plus they know that they have to throw a bone back to the bettors every once in a while. The lawyers and accountants haven’t figured that out.
January 8th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
That’s funny!! Bossert is such a parasite himself, he’s always drunk up in Saratoga & can never pick a winner besides the chalk. OTB is a great place to wager
January 8th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
ralf
if you believe otb is such a great place to wager and the return to the horsemen sucks then you ought to just use a bookmaker
January 9th, 2010 at 2:49 am
From a previous post:
“OTB is a great place to wager”
Fine, then let it survive/die on its own and let its patrons pick up the tab when it can’t make ends meet from a business perspective. It’s another welfare grab - nothing more.
January 9th, 2010 at 10:36 am
While Bossert has some good incite in this dilemma it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. If you go just a few miles downtown from New York’s two racetracks, it is against the law to commingle funds and the SEC has severe penalties for doing so. In the last 10 years pari mutual vendors have been violating this law with impunity as regulatory bodies fail to do their primary jobs. Only takeout belongs to the vendors and government. 78.5 % belongs to the public (bettors) and cannot be used as operational cash as City OTB and many others have done recently. This money should be in separate trust accounts. This is the root cause of our current problems. The public’s money should not be at risk during a bankruptcy filing and withheld from the bettors. Making pari mutual transactions is a contract and should remain outside of the use of track; OTB or ADW vendors. The founding fathers of Racing Commissions entrusted the Commissions primarily for the sole purpose of protecting the public’s wagering dollars; not for rulemaking, licensing or other bureaucratic tendencies. Those things came later. But failure to understand the industry now is common and egregious mistakes are tearing at the very core of the sport and industry. The settlement issue has reached criminal proportion because of no oversight action and will eventually cripple purses as well as public confidence.
January 9th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
The OTB’s in New York should be merged. I heard that Pat Foye, former Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Chairman during the Spitzer administration, was working on this strategy. It is believed that he would then have merged this new OTB with the new NYRA.
This strategy was correct then and is still the correct solution today. However the devil will be in the details with lots of senior management heads and bloated staff required to be ditched in order to make this new entity the efficient organization the industry deserves.
Lets hope sense will finally prevail in Albany.
January 9th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Those are some great points, though NYRA , OTB, the State / the unions they all know the answer how to fix everything, it’s just NYRA will never let it happen because OTB getting fixed will expose multiple corruption robberies which they have been doing for years , they can’t get anybody to the tracks with their awful marketing, their coverage via web/on track/television is awful, at least OTB has what is now a functioning television network with great handicapping shows, constant information for the bettors & it seems it can do more in this 21st century technology look that Frucher is talking about., its time to look for the future, OTB is trying to lead the industry out of NYRA’s miserable performance
January 11th, 2010 at 10:31 am
better rashad than i was expecting. Still want a thiago win tho