To the Editor:
In backing the heavy favorite, Thomas Suozzi, for Nassau County executive (editorial, Oct. 30), you label his challenger Greg Peterson's former position as chairman and president of Nassau's Off-Track Betting Corporation ''a key position for doling out G.O.P. patronage.''
Hello? The current president of Nassau Downs OTB is Larry Aaronson. He is the former Nassau Democratic Party chairman. And how about these great moments in OTB as Democratic plum patronage:
1971: New York City OTB's founder, Howard Samuels, a twice-failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate, appoints the corporation's first executive director: his campaign manager, Ken Auletta.
1997: Hazel Dukes, appointed New York City OTB president by the city's Democratic mayor, David Dinkins, pleads guilty to embezzling money from an employee after having run the corporation at a multi-million-dollar loss in her final year.
Whichever side is running the show, they both tend to play the same shell game, don't they?

Bobby Smith
Bayville