Otb

After its first week of operation, Maryland's newest OTB parlor at the Port Tobacco Marina and Restaurant in Charles County is averaging about $30,000 per day in bets.That may sound like chump change, but it ranks ahead of The Shoals parlor in Cambridge and is "above expectations," said proprietor Vincent "Cap" Mona.By comparison, the state's most successful OTB, the Cracked Claw in Urbana, averages about five or six times that amount."But there are about 400,000 people living within 15 minutes of that parlor [near Frederick]

In what one commissioner termed "a low point" in the board's history, the Maryland Racing Commission granted an OTB permit to the Port Tobacco Marina in Charles County yesterday despite opposition from residents who live next to or near the facility.The move expands the state's number of horse racing off-track betting outlets to five.Vincent "Cap" Mona, proprietor of the Port Tobacco bar/restaurant/boating and betting facility, said the pari-mutuel part of the operation will start taking horse bets tomorrow.

PORT TOBACCO -- Residents living near the Port Tobacco Marina expressed virulent opposition yesterday to the 22-acre restaurant-bar-boating facility becoming the site of the state's fifth off-track betting parlor."

Harness horsemen have reversed their stand and approved the possible opening of the state's fifth off-track betting parlor, in Charles County near La Plata.The horsemen originally said the site of the proposed outlet at the Port Tobacco Marina and Restaurant is too close to Rosecroft Raceway and could siphon off business from the track.But they changed their minds at a board meeting of the Cloverleaf Standardbred Owners' Association at Rosecroft on Monday night.Under state law, horsemen and track managements must give their consent if an outlet is within a 35-mile radius of an existing racetrack.

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Virginia Racing Commission licensed the state's first off-track betting parlor yesterday and a new guardian angel -- Jeff Jacobs of the Richard Jacobs family that owns the Cleveland Indians baseball team who said he is developing a $60 million casino near Denver -- showed up to help fund it.Jacobs told the commission that he is contributing $1 million to help Arnold Stansley renovate a 17,000-square-foot deserted grocery store in...

NEW YORK -- A 10-week-old experiment that lets horseplayers watch live races on television and call in their bets has proved to be a financial and marketing bonanza for the often-beleaguered New York City Off-Track Betting Corp.The test has provided less spectacular returns for the New York Racing Association, which lit OTB's home-betting fires by making TV signals of its races from Aqueduct and Belmont race tracks available free on cable.Now, a dispute over a promise by OTB to make home wagering more lucrative to the racing association is threatening the arrangement.

Plans are being made to open Virginia's first off-track betting parlor, even though Colonial Downs, the state's first racetrack, has yet to be built and is undergoing what is expected to be a lengthy appeals process.Arnold Stansley, who is building the track near Richmond in conjunction with the Maryland Jockey Club, submitted an application yesterday to the Virginia Racing Commission, asking the board for approval to open a 15,000-square-foot off-track betting parlor in Hampton.The prospective facility, located in a shopping center south of Newport News, would be big enough to handle 1,600 fans, according to Stansley's estimates.

YORK, Pa.-- A lavish off-track betting parlor, one of the most well-appointed pari-mutuel facilities in the mid-Atlantic region, opened here last week and is spurring Maryland racetrack operators to accelerate efforts to open an upscale facility at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium.Laurel/Pimlico president Joe De Francis said he is fielding telephone calls from local fans who are discovering the York facility.Towson attorney Mo Balser, a horse owner as well as a fan, said that after one trip to the York OTB, he is considering changing his race-going habits.

One-thousand slot machines are likely to be installed and in use at Delaware Park by midsummer, says Steve Kallens, the track's newly re-hired director of marketing.Rules and regulations governing management of the machines have just about been completed by Delaware's lottery commission, which will oversee their use, and renovations have begun at the track for their installation.The slots are the first of two tests of increased competition that the Maryland tracks will face this year.The other is Penn National's new off-track betting parlor in York, Pa., a plush, 25,000-square-foot facility expected to open in mid-March.

The lawsuit that could delay the construction of the proposed Colonial Downs racetrack near Richmond by as much as a year and set back the opening until 1997 might also impede track operators Arnold Stansley and Joe De Francis from immediately opening six planned off-track betting parlors in Virginia.Already the first two planned sites -- one in Virginia Beach, the other in Richmond -- are in jeopardy.Opening the parlors is considered instrumental if Colonial Downs is going to be a success.