The Post has the scoop:
The city's teetering Off-Track Betting Corp. will seek permission to close as many as two-thirds of its 68 branches when it files a bankruptcy reorganization plan, The Post has learned.
Sources said the plan also calls for eliminating half of the remaining 1,100 betting clerks, through attrition or buyouts, and for OTB to float $250 million in bonds to meet its obligations.
One source said the bonds would have to be backed by the state, which faces its own monumental budget woes.
"Who in their right mind is going to buy OTB bonds?" asked the source. "The only way it works is with a state guarantee."
Here's a passage from a May 2008 post on the shuttered John Street OTB:
This line from the Times article sums it up best:
It is an ever-narrowing slice of New York that still belongs to the hustler and the old-timer. Soon it may be extinct...
Like everything else that helps give the city some character.
1 comment:
I used to bet at the Kings Highway OTB on the way home from school. I had to get one of the old guys to place my bets, as my Catholic school uniform was kind of a dead giveaway that I was not of betting age.
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