help us paul
Paul Lo Duca, the former Major League Baseball All-Star who has worked as a racing analyst on TVG for eight years, will join the New York Racing Association as an analyst on its “Saratoga Live” show beginning July 21, it was announced Monday.
Lo Duca replaces Richard Migliore, who announced his departure from the NYRA earlier this summer and did his final show last Saturday. Lo Duca joins a lineup that will include host Greg Wolf and analysts Andy Serling, Maggie Wolfendale, Gabby Gaudet, and Tom Amoss.
It is a homecoming of sorts for Lo Duca, a native of Brooklyn, who played two seasons with the New York Mets (2006-07) during an 11-year career in which he also played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Florida Marlins, and Washington Nationals.
Stop scratching on holidays
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.
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
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.
By joining NYRA, Lo Duca is reunited with former TVG executive vice president Tony Allevato, who is now executive producer for NYRA TV as well as president of NYRA Bets. Lo Duca said Allevato helped to polish his skills as a broadcaster when he first started working at TVG.
Lo Duca said the rapid-fire presentation of races from multiple tracks on TVG often left little to no time for post-race analysis, taking some of the enjoyment out of working for that network.
“To get back to concentrating on one card, four to five races a day, and getting into deep discussion and doing TV, that’s the key,” Lo Duca said Monday.
Lo Duca is expected to also do some of the NYRA broadcasts during the Belmont fall meet.
Lo Duca also liked the freedom that he’ll have working part time for NYRA. Lo Duca said he will likely do freelance work for Barstool Sports and will also work part time for his friend and horse owner Eric Fein, who runs a title insurance company.
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