Bills seek to avert OTB closure
By Matt Hegarty
The bill includes a provision that would transfer control of the OTB company's wagering accounts to the oversight board, opening up the possibility that the board would assign the management of those accounts to the New York Racing Association. Over the past two weeks, NYRA's lobbyists have offered to take over the corporation's Internet and telephone account-wagering operations, but that offer has been rejected by Gov. David Paterson.
A NYRA official who has been close to the lobbying effort said that management of the telephone and Internet betting accounts would mitigate any negative impact of the OTB's closure on April 11 while also giving NYRA an additional revenue stream to address its own financial problems. "If all they did was graft the phone and Internet wagering to us, and let the parlors sort themselves out over the next six months, we'd probably be all right," the official said.
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