LOCALS WHO BET THE PONIES.....

The new expansion project at The SouthPoint is almost all finished and it is close to perfection.....

To separate the sports and race books is brilliant; the new area is very well lit..no need for those little lamps to read the Racing Form, still close to those 75 cents Vienna hotdogs, real nice bar being finished.

...was reading the new Gaming Today and found out that the SouthPoint has a Director of the sportsbook and ALSO a director of the racebook....totally unique, and a great idea. They also, for those with hotel rooms here, provide the TV feed for all the tracks direct to the rooms and also provide a phone betting account for their guests who want to watch and bet from their rooms.

Considering that the racebook is all profit, I cannot understand why the Strip hotel/casinos don't try to emphasize racing the way that the locals do. This new expansion will proove to be money well spent for Michael Gaughan.

666....

Not quite certain about what you are saying....

When a racebook signs a contract with a track(s)...like Magna....they take 15-18% of every dollar bet and forward the remainder to the track, thru the Hub. Most tracks take up to 26% out of every bet (exotics mainly) and put the remainder in the mutuel pool to be divided among the winners.

My point was....The racebooks are working with track money and, unlike the sportsbook, have no vested interest in the bet at all. I am not certain why a racebook would refuse your bet...they are simply acting as the "agent" for the racetrack. The Zenyatta race did have a $1M minus show pool...but all bets here were taken and the payoff was $2.10.

666...

Yes, there was a time when books handled racing as a non para-mutuel wager....when they did not have a signed deal with the tracks. Last year, there was a short period that it happened here with the Magna company...Gulfstream, Churchill, and others.

As to OTB...I go back to the early days with them in NYC....had one of the original phone accounts...hung with Harvey Pack....Their failure is part government oversight and a management that should never have been involved in the business; but was "juiced in" because of who someone knew..and not because they knew how to run this kind of operation.

Maybe you should move out here.....