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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.
Sweden and England will play Saturday. What to do when the wedding conflicts? ZUMA (2)
LONDON—As England’s World Cup soccer match against Colombia went to a dramatic penalty shootout, English fan William Gyngell felt relief. His team never won on penalties.
This time it did. That meant England’s next match would now be played on the same day as Mr. Gyngell’s wedding, which starts at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
But, the game is on!
At 3, half of England will anxiously watch their national soccer team’s first foray into the final stages of the World Cup in more than a decade.
The other half may well be attending a wedding, because England’s quarterfinal match against Sweden is taking place on one of the busiest days of the year for British weddings.
The conflicting schedules have led to frayed relationships, a scramble to rearrange receptions, bans on cellphones and an intervention by the Church of England.
Marriages around the world are often upended by clashes with sporting schedules. The U.S. college football season, with games traditionally played on Saturday afternoons, has a long tradition of wedding interference. Spring and summer sports such as Major League Baseball hit the wedding season hard. Guests tend to disappear from reception halls and migrate to the nearest sports bar.
The World Cup, with a large number of teams competing in a series of knockout matches, is particularly difficult to plan around. It is impossible to know if a country’s team will make it past the opening rounds. At the same time, if a team does progress, the matches are nationwide must-watches.
The clash of loyalties is particularly awkward in England, where soccer is the most popular sport. The game was invented in the country, which gives its fans a sense of ownership that hasn’t been warranted by victory in a major international tournament since 1966. Years of disappointment have surrounded a national team that always seems to choke at crucial moments.
Mr. Gyngell, 29, was at work in London printing off the ceremony’s program when England and Colombia lined up to take their penalties. “I thought…we have no chance. I’m not worried,” he said of a team that had never won a penalty shootout in World Cup play.
William Gyngell and Saskia Cooper will tie the knot during the England-Sweden World Cup match on Saturday. PHOTO: WILLIAM GYNGELL
When English defender Eric Dier slotted a final penalty kick past the Colombian goalkeeper, the nation erupted into cheers, city streets jammed with honking cars and inebriated fans climbed lampposts. The 24 million viewers who tuned in to that match made it the most watched television show in Britain since the 2012 Olympics.
“Now it feels like the World Cup is part of our marriage,” Mr. Gyngell said.
As texts rolled in from friends, bride-to-be Saskia Cooper, 29, had a vision: 110 wedding guests streaming a football match on their phones just after she walked down the aisle.
One guest, Rowan Lewin, said he has booked a minibus to pick some people up directly from the church to take them to a local pub to watch the game. “The football is essential,” he said.
The bride and groom rejected a request to substitute one of their planned hymns for English football’s anthem, “Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home).”
As he ushers people to their seats, Mr. Gyngell’s best man has been instructed to remind guests that the wedding is to be football free. Full disclosure: That best man is a reporter on this article.
The couple will be married in a 13th-century church in Kent, the so-called Garden of England, by Vicar Trish ffrench.
Though Ms. ffrench watched the match against Colombia, it took a while for the clash with her scheduled wedding to sink in. When it did, she thought back to an earlier World Cup match, when she was being ordained into the Church of England, just as Germany met with Brazil in the much anticipated 2002 final.
“Some of my family ended up coming to only some of the service, and they actually rigged up a TV aerial on top of a car outside,” she said.
Wedding Planner Holly Poulter is adjusting photography plans to avoid having World Cup fans in the background. PHOTO: JAN NEILSON
On Saturday Ms. ffrench is laying down the law, and it’s a strict one. Anyone who interrupts the service or shouts will be asked to leave.
That approach has the full backing of the Church of England, which has asked wedding revelers across the country to switch off all phones during marriage ceremonies. “We would hate for anyone in the service to accidentally shout “No!” at an inopportune moment,” said Rev. Sandra Millar, the Church of England head of life events at the Church.
Ms. Cooper and Mr. Gyngell’s dilemma is being repeated up and down the country. “How selfish can my mom be getting married at 3 p.m. Saturday. She knows there is more important things going on,” user @JGAGames94 said in a Twitter post.
London-based planner Holly Poulter has been rearranging photography logistics for the wedding she is working on to make sure the couple is shot far away from pubs, most of which will be screening the match. A horde of drunken England football fans “is not exactly what you want in the back of your photos,” she said.
The clash is likewise happening in Sweden, England’s opponent, where the love of soccer also hasn’t been matched by recent success on the field.
Lina Borg has delayed her wedding reception in a medieval castle in Örebro, in central Sweden, so that guests can watch the game. “Otherwise somebody might yell during the speeches” if somebody scores, she said. “If we win, it’s going to be a great wedding party.”
Watch more World Cup videos here
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.
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.
Write to Philip Georgiadis at philip.georgiadis@wsj.com and Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com
Appeared in the July 7, 2018, print edition as 'Loyalties Are Tested When the Big Game Falls on Your Big Day.'
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