New York
State
“Place your bets
here!
A Queens lawmaker wants to
legalize betting on professional sports in New York — and his proposed
legislation has the backing of one of the state’s top prosecutors, Brooklyn DA
Charles “Joe” Hynes, The Post has learned.
State Sen. Tony Avella’s bill
would allow betting on baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer at the
Aqueduct and Yonkers racinos and all casinos across the state, as well as
off-track betting parlors outside the city.
Currently, only betting on horse
racing is legal.
Such legalized betting in the
sports-crazed Big Apple could become a cash cow for the state, where fans
passionately follow — and often illegally bet on — the Yankees, Mets, Giants,
Jets Knicks and Rangers.
Citing a study conducted by the
New York City Partnership five years ago, Democrat Avella said betting on pro
sports would generate more than $2 billion.
He said the state’s cut from the
racino sports book would go to fund schools.
“We have to think out of the box.
I’d rather come up with revenue this way rather than raising property taxes,”
said Avella.
He claimed said studies show
illegal sports betting generates more than $100 billion nationally and as much
as $15 billion to $30 billion in New York City alone — much of it feeding
organized crime.
And that’s why Hynes is supporting
the measure. He said sports betting should be regulated by the government and
benefit the public, not crooks.
“Right now, sports betting is a
cash cow for the mob,” said Hynes. “I’ve been in favor of legalized sports
betting. It has always made sense to me.”
Hynes feels so strongly about
authorizing sports betting that he will write letters to urge Gov. Cuomo and the
state District Attorneys Association to back the legislation.
“It would be a huge win for the
state of New York,” he said.”
2)
NYRA told to
come up with reform plan ASAP -
Times
Union
“For the second time this month,
Gov. Andrew Cuomo presided over a face-to-face meeting with trustees of the New
York Racing Association, and this time his brow was full of creases, according
to people close to those in the room.
In the first meeting two weeks
ago, Cuomo stated his position indirectly but diplomatically to a dozen NYRA
trustees in Albany. He told them things must change.
But last Friday in Manhattan, with
the NYRA board's executive committee, the governor was more like a prosecutor.
He bluntly stated that things will change.
The stronger message comes after
the governor took exception to the board appointing a new president and general
counsel when he would have preferred interim leaders while two state
investigations of NYRA play out. The probes are covering the circumstances of a
15-month period of overcharging bettors leading to $8.5 million in unlawful
commissions. NYRA's new president, Ellen McClain, was on duty as a top financial
and compliance administrator during those 15 months.
Governors don't normally sit down
with NYRA trustees for private meetings — so secretive that Cuomo's aides refuse
to even acknowledge the sessions are scheduled, one even pleading ignorance when
12 NYRA trustees were converging on the Capitol.”
“The biggest winner of Saturday's
Preakness Stakes was the New York Racing Association. That's because I'll Have
Another, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, is coming to
town.
For the next three weeks, I'll
Have Another is going to be a bigger Big Apple sports name than Derek Jeter or
Henrik Lundqvist.
Horse racing hasn't seen a Triple
Crown winner since 1978, and here comes I'll Have Another, on the cusp of
thoroughbred immortality.
The New York Racing Association,
which has been battered, beaten and humiliated over the last two weeks, finally
got a break.
On June 9, there will be life at
Belmont, a place that has had little cheer.
On May 4, the takeout scandal cost
Charles Hayward, NYRA's president and CEO, his job. Patrick Kehoe, the
organization's chief counsel, also got the heave-ho.
A week later, it was announced
that Ellen McClain would be the organization's new president, but she was the
chief finance officer for the majority of the takeout scandal.
The New York State Inspector
General is conducting an ongoing investigation.
NYRA has lost the trust of many a
horseplayer. Just over six months ago, the future was bright for New York racing
when the casino at Aqueduct opened and purses soared. Now the
scandal.”
4)
SARDELLA: Ray
Sharpe continues success in Saratoga - The
Saratogian
“Ray Sharpe is a relatively new
name to fans of Saratoga Casino and Raceway but it’s a name you should get used
to hearing. Sharpe first started training horses back in 2004 but it wasn’t
until the last few years that he has been doing so on a full-time
basis.
In 2009, the conditioner had his
best season according to purse money earned as he tallied more than $115,000
with his trainees in just 63 starts. Training in New Jersey and racing almost
exclusively at Freehold Raceway and the Meadowlands, Sharpe had nine wins and
nine seconds en route to the six-digit season. After only starting 36 horses in
2010, Sharpe started to go at it full time in the ’11 season and began competing
at Saratoga in nearly all of his races.
The Ray Sharpe Stable had a
breakout year in 2011, doing it almost solely at the Spa. In 104 total races,
Sharpe recorded 14 wins and hit the board 46 times, amassing just shy of
$100,000 in earnings and finishing with a training average of
.274.
Sharpe had enough success to not
only race at Saratoga full time but also to move here. The conditioner now calls
Saratoga Springs home and has certainly found a home for himself at the raceway.
In last week’s action, Sharpe had his best stretch since coming to town last
year. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, Sharpe started horses in three races and
he swept them.”
5)
I'll Have
Another Arrives in NY One Win Away - Blood
Horse
“Trainer Doug O'Neill has full
confidence in the potential for I'll Have Another to handle the grueling 1 1/2
miles of the Belmont Stakes (gr. I) after the colt captured the first two jewels
of America's Triple Crown.
“He’s got the mind,” O’Neill said
at Pimlico Race Course the morning after I'll Have Another nipped Bodemeister by
a neck in a thrilling renewal of the May 19 Preakness Stakes (gr. I). “You’ve
seen the way he’s handled the attention in Kentucky and here in Baltimore. He’s
got a great confidence about him and he’s got the stride of a horse that a mile
and a half won’t be a problem. He’s got the pedigree; so much stamina on the
female side."
Meanwhile, after a second
agonizing loss to I’ll Have Another in the Preakness, trainer Bob Baffert said
Bodemeister will remain in training but skip the Belmont.
“I’ve had enough,” Baffert
quipped.
Reddam Racing's I'll Have Another,
winner of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) by 1 1/2 lengths
two weeks before the Preakness, was loaded onto a van the morning of May 20 to
begin his journey to Belmont Park and a date with racing history.
He arrived at Barn 9 at Belmont
Park following the ride at 2:53 p.m. EDT.
“We got kind of held up for about
an hour and a half,” said Jack Sisterson, assistant to O’Neill. “I have no idea
where we were, but besides that the horse was happy. He was just looking out the
window the whole time. He and Lava Man were together, they were just chatting
away the whole time. We were at Pimlico almost two weeks and we shipped in a
week before at Churchill, and now we’re here for the three weeks. So far, so
good.
"It’s kind of working out for us,
so we’re not going to change that. I think the sooner he gets over the track and
gets familiar with the surroundings. We’ll walk him tomorrow and then take it
from there. One day at a time.”
After winning the Preakness in
front of a record crowd of 121,309, the chestnut son of Flower Alley is the
first since Big Brown in 2008 to win the first two legs of the series. He will
try to become the 12th horse to capture American racing’s most treasured prize –
and the first since Affirmed in 1978 – in the Belmont June 9.”
“A powerful group of businesses in
the trade-show industry has coalesced to fight Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plan to tear
down the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center to ensure they have a voice in the
final decision.
After nearly six months of intense
meetings and conference calls, senior executives of companies that produce the
vast majority of the shows at the Javits Center took a bold public stand,
sending a letter to the governor late last month stating their opposition to the
demolition of the Far West Side facility. The letter was also distributed to
some 600 officials, including state and city legislators.
The executives insist they will
not patronize the much larger venue in Ozone Park, Queens, at the Aqueduct
raceway that is to be built by the casino operator Genting Americas. They prefer
a proposed, but troubled, development plan at Willets Point near Citi Field,
which is closer to Manhattan. "Javits customers are adamant that the Javits
Center remain open long term," their letter stated.
Calling themselves Friends of
Javits, the group is composed of 21 of the largest trade-show companies in the
business—which produce such events as the International Restaurant &
Foodservice Show and the New York International Gift Fair—as well as
organizations such as the Toy Industry Association and the National Retail
Federation, which also produce big events at Javits.
A seat at the negotiating
table
The governor's dramatic
announcement in January of a Javits replacement in Ozone Park surprised the
executives, but they are determined to get a seat at the negotiating table
now.
"We wanted to let the governor
know that there is a strong base of support [for keeping the facility] and to
ask him to reconsider tearing it down," said Britton Jones, chief executive of
Business Journals Inc., which produces 17 events at Javits a year, including the
Accessories and Moda Manhattan shows.
Without the trade-show industry's
support, the proposed 3.8 million-square-foot convention center at Aqueduct—the
largest in the country—would be tough to fill.
"This is a real strong message by
the industry, which is saying, 'Just because you build it, it doesn't mean we'll
come,' " said Mark Schienberg, president of the Greater New York Automobile
Dealers Association, which produces the annual New York International Auto Show
at Javits.
The auto show's name does not
appear on the letter because Mr. Schienberg is willing to move his weeklong
event to Aqueduct, although he supports the industry's position on Javits. "They
can easily pull their shows from New York City," he explained. "I
can't."
The New York Hotel Association
also recently sent a position paper to its members expressing its support for
the Javits Center to remain open.”
Other Articles of
Interest
Ohio's casino commission has set
up a way to help problem gamblers from giving into temptation and going into the
state's casinos.
Compulsive gamblers or anyone else
can ask the commission to ban themselves from any of the four casinos opening in
the state.
The Akron Beacon Journal reported
that the new state program makes it a crime for those on the list to
enter.
People can ask to be banned for a
year, five years or life.
So far, one northeast Ohio man is
on the list and 10 others are awaiting approval. The casino commission thinks
between 5,000 and 10,000 people will participate.
Ohio's program is similar to those
in 15 others states.
“It's getting tougher to do
business in the Northeast casino market. That's the conclusion of many of those
who study such trends. Given the explosion in the number of gambling venues in
recent years and the finite number of gamblers, it's hardly surprising that
"oversaturation" is having a big impact on a domestic gaming industry that not
too long ago was confined (legally, anyway) to the Nevada desert.
But casino gambling came to
Atlantic City in the late 1970s, and now every state from West Virginia to Maine
has some combination of commercial casinos, Native American-run casinos and
lotteries. Massachusetts has all three, and New York might have a casino in
Manhattan within five years. Parimutuel wagering, horse racing and lotteries are
also popular. Taken together, and counting gambling destinations in other parts
of the country — including storied Las Vegas — "oversaturation" pretty much
describes what's going on in the gambling business.
And a lot of casinos are hurting
as a result.
That the politicians in various
states who have been selling gambling as a cure for their states' financial woes
don't recognize the worrisome trend may be surprising or not, depending on one's
views of politicians generally. David Cordish, whose company is opening yet
another huge new casino in Maryland next month, says politicians don't
understand oversaturation and "think you can have casinos like Starbucks" — on
every corner.
Atlantic City is proof positive
that such an attitude is just plain wrong. Though New Jersey gaming officials
say gross profits are up significantly over the last two quarters, the more than
a dozen casinos there have been enduring a five-year slump that has seen a lot
of the resort town's former gambling patrons being siphoned off by newer casinos
in Pennsylvania. The glitter of the Atlantic City gaming experience faded a
while ago. Some of the casinos are showing their age, and from anecdotal
accounts, we hear customer service happens more by accident than by design. A
new casino, Revel, is being counted on to reverse Atlantic City's fortunes, but
some experts at this year's East Coast Gaming Congress said what the town really
needs is fewer casinos, not more.”
3)
Jimmy Buffett
talks about his new Mississippi casino - USA
Today
“Jimmy Buffett the businessman is
expanding his empire.
The poster child for the laid-back
lifestyle got his first paid performing job in Biloxi, Miss., and opens a
Margaritaville Casino & Restaurant there Tuesday. It joins a chain of
restaurants and bars, a hotel in Pensacola, Fla., online game, clothing line,
casino at the Flamingo resort in Las Vegas and other ventures. Another casino in
Bossier City, La., is in the cards for next year.
Jimmy Buffett appears before the
Mississippi Gaming Commission Thursday as the final step toward opening a
Margaritaville Casino and Resort in Biloxi, Miss. Buffett, 65, never intended
to be a corporate king. But he has negotiated the shark-infested waters of the
music business and tries new ventures because "it's kind of fun," he
drawls.
The Pascagoula, Miss., native says
of the Biloxi casino, where a hotel also is planned: "I didn't know if I wanted
to do it, but then the storm (Katrina) came along. I was contacted by (former
Mississippi Gov.) Haley Barbour, who said, 'We need to get back.' " Buffett and
a partnerbuilt the casino, adding 1,000 jobs to the local
economy.”
