You Down On OTB (Just Like Mike B.)?

Then again, maybe the government shouldn’t be involved in helping you fritter away your paycheck at the racetrack anyway:

The time may have come to close down the city’s Off-Track Betting operation, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday, as a way of getting the city out of a long-troubled business.

OTB revenues exceed operating expenses, he said, but OTB has to turn so much of its profit over to the state that the city cannot reap a benefit.

“The state uses it as a cash cow, and the city has been subsidizing the state, and we are not going to continue to do that,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference on Roosevelt Island.

The operation in New York City opened 36 years ago to generate revenue and diminish the influence of organized crime on gambling.

OTB now brings in about $250 million in revenue, with operating expenses of about $125 million, but because of obligations exceeding those profits, including providing financial support for the state’s racing industry and other payments to the state, it has not had enough left over to pay what it owes the city. Bloomberg aides said OTB has begun dipping into its cash reserves to make up the shortfall.