{"id":3351,"date":"2010-12-07T07:08:59","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T12:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3351"},"modified":"2010-12-07T08:22:40","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T13:22:40","slug":"morning-read-why-off-track-betting-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/12\/07\/morning-read-why-off-track-betting-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read:  Why off-track betting matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of New Yorkers are puzzled by the fact that the legislature is reconvening and twisting itself into pretzels over all those off-track betting parlors scattered about New York City and upstate communities.<\/p>\n<p>There are two reasons why you should care.\u00a0 First, they generate a ton of revenue for local governments across the state.\u00a0 This from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesunion.com\/local\/article\/NYC-OTB-down-to-wire-864829.php\">Albany Times Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fifty-one local governments receive revenue from the OTBs &#8212; $165 million over the past five years. They also employ thousands of\u00a0people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Secondly, those betting parlors provide the purses for the state&#8217;s big race tracks, including the venerable track at Saratoga.\u00a0 No betting parlors, no big paydays, no top horses.<\/p>\n<p>Again from the T-U:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Last week, Republican Sen. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesunion.com\/?controllerName=search&amp;action=search&amp;channel=local&amp;search=1&amp;inlineLink=1&amp;query=%22Roy+McDonald%22\">Roy McDonald<\/a>, whose district includes Saratoga Race Course, said he would be willing to vote for the governor&#8217;s plan if it prevents NYCOTB from going under &#8212; an outcome that would reduce the betting &#8220;handle&#8221; that draws top-quality horses to New York&#8217;s\u00a0tracks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This summer&#8217;s races in Saratoga were on the verge of being called off, thanks in part to the money squeeze from the off-track betting parlors.<\/p>\n<p>That would devastate Saratoga Springs&#8217; tourism economy, with repercussions felt deep into the North Country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of New Yorkers are puzzled by the fact that the legislature is reconvening [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[22,10,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3352,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3351\/revisions\/3352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}