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Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Senators: $100M electronic gaming parlor coming to Woodbury
WOODBURY – The state Assembly, Senate and governor have reached a deal to allow Empire Resorts to open a $100 million electronic gaming parlor in the former Nepera chemical plant complex in the Town of Woodbury and the Village of Harriman, state Sens. James Skoufis and Jen Metzger announced Thursday evening.
Empire Resorts, parent company to Resorts World Catskills casino in Sullivan County, would likely employ 400 union workers to mind the so-called video lottery terminals, under the gaming license that the company once used for electronic gaming at Monticello Raceway, Skoufis said.
The deal to allow a new VLT facility was expected to pass Thursday night as part of an omnibus bill, Skoufis confirmed.
The facility will likely have 1,100 VLTs, Skoufis said. That’s the same number permitted under the state license Empire Resorts used to operate VLTs at Monticello Raceway June 2004 until the company closed the casino portion of the racino in April.
The company will be permitted to keep 59 percent of slots revenue from the electronic gaming parlor, with 8.75 percent going to Monticello Raceway’s purses, 1.25 percent set aside for a horse breeders’ fund, and the remainder going to the state.
The state will contribute $1.2 million in annual aid to the Town of Woodbury, the villages of Woodbury and Harriman and Orange County to help cover costs associated with providing municipal services for the electronic slots parlor.
Plus, Skoufis has pushed Empire Resorts to vow not to ask for property tax breaks such as a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement.
The law will require MGM, which owns Yonkers Raceway, and Empire Resorts to work out a mitigation agreement, which the state gaming commission will have to review, said Skoufis. The senator also confirmed that the two companies are already either close to a deal or have reached one in principle.
Any VLT parlor project will still need to go through the municipal approval process.
Check back later to recordonline.com for a full story with more details.
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