New York has finally taken the Off-Track Betting Corporation out behind the barn and shot it.
Closing costs have been estimated at $19 million, and pension and health benefits for retirees could climb above $600 million. Track owners seem less likely than ever to collect the $67 million they are owed, and the state would probably lose the $11 million it has coming.
I know what you’re asking yourself: “Gee, I wonder what Jesus Leonardo is going to do?” For those who may not recall, Mr. Leonardo was profiled in the NYT last year; he’s a “stooper”, someone who picks up discarded tickets and cashes in the winners. Somehow, he’s able to make a claimed $45,000 a year off of this activity.
The 58-year-old Leonardo, who lives in Wanaque, N.J., has devised a plan that will allow him to continue searching for someone else’s lost treasure. He has increased his ticket-collecting staff to six, and has started dispatching them on a rotating basis to racetracks in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia. The runners meet at a neutral site every night and turn over the discarded betting slips to Leonardo, who then takes them to individual tracks for scanning.
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 9th, 2010 at 7:44 am and is filed under Clippings, Horses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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