City OTB Rescue Fails in State Senate

Update, Dec. 7, 5 p.m.: A vote to rescue Off Track Betting went down in the state Senate Tuesday afternoon, three votes shy of the 32 needed to pass through the 50-seat chamber.

State Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) was one of only two Albany Republicans voting to approve a restructuring plan for the troubled gaming entity which would have saved 800 jobs across the city, including approximately a dozen employees at the OTB betting parlor in Little Neck.

Unless OTB's board of directors acts to extend its operations, betting locations citywide will close at midnight Tuesday.

Nearly a dozen jobs at the city branch in Little Neck will be lost at midnight Tuesday if New York State legislators do not act to extend funding to the beleagured gaming corporation.

The looming job losses come only a week after 40 employees of Scobee Diner, located across Little Neck Parkway from OTB, were laid off as a result of the .

OTB's board of directors voted Monday to extend operations until midnight Tuesday in the hopes that the state Senate will approve a reorganization plan which passed the Assembly last week.

The Senate is expected to consider the measure this week. According to published reports, the deal passed by the Assembly includes forgiveness of $67 million of OTB's debt on the condition that the bankrupt entity be turned over to a consortium of track owners.

"This plan is not a bailout. Not a single taxpayer dollar is being requested," said city OTB chairman Larry Schwartz in a statement released Monday. "And when the reorganization plan is in place, NYC OTB will be a profitable, revenue-generating entity for the state of New York; thousands of jobs will be saved; and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars conserved."

The looming city OTB shutdown is the latest in a string of crises for the quasi-government organization, which in recent years has suffered from lost revenue due to changing gambling habits and rising costs.

"This is a big issue," said Aldo Coppi at the OTB's gambling hall in Little Neck. "I don't understand why the [New York] Racing Association, with all this money, doesn't just come in and buy it."

Even more unclear was how area lawmakers would vote on the reorganization plan.

"OTB is losing money because too much of its cash goes to the state and the OTB affiliates outside New York City," said state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing), referring to OTB outlets in Nassau County, the Catskills and New York's Capital Region, among other places.

Outgoing state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose), whose district includes the Little Neck OTB location, could not be reached for comment on the expected vote on the reorganization plan.

At the betting parlor in Little Neck, patrons catching the latest results from racetracks from the Meadowlands to Monticello seemed mostly unfazed by this most recent report of OTB's demise.

"I wish they would close," said Steve Loparnos of Flushing. "I lose a lot of money here."