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Originally Posted by BlueShoe
Would you care to comment on the quality of any of listed sites and make a recommendation? Looked at a few of them on Google Maps in a few places such as Prescott, Payson, and Cottonwood, and was not impressed, they looked like dumps.
www.turfparadise.com/otbfinder.php |
I'll be honest, for most of my AZ life, I have rarely strayed off of the paths that lead to the various racetracks. I've been a racetracker here for most of my life and have been pinned to those areas. Only recently have I stopped "living" at the racetracks, and so really, I've only been to a handful of the sites - those in the Prescott area, Flagstaff, and the Phoenix area. Your assessment is pretty much on the mark of those. Antelope Lanes in Prescott Valley is the one that I've spent the most time at by far, and it most closely resembles an actual OTB in the sense that there are several monitors and a dozen tables to sit at.
But it is literally in the bar, albeit not your typical southeastern, cowboy hat, country music 24/7 bar. It isn't awful, but it is generally almost vacant, doesn't open until after a third of the east coast track cards have commenced (like most sites), and just simply doesn't feel like an OTB. And it's the best of those I've been to - most of them are more like the old Keno games that used to exist in bars - most of the people playing are there to drink and hold up the one line to the teller trying to figure out how to play a three horse trifecta box and then can't understand why it costs six bucks.
I used to spend quite a bit of time there. I have never had an active wagering account even before they were effectively ended in the state by the legislation. I RARELY go anymore, primarily out of spite and a desire to NOT support being treated like a lemming any longer by the idiot that runs the show. There used to be a bit of comradrie amongst the devout players, but many have walked away, opting to go to the casinos, or have simply died.
It's hard for me to characterize those that I've been to as "dumps", because I have very low standards, but most people would I assume, and plenty of those I know do consider them "dumps". Compared to the teletheatres in New York that I was used to before moving here, they are dumps. And most are just as you describe, tiny little areas with a monitor or two and a single clerk, embedded within another facility.
