Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Ernie Dahlman
In Steven Crist's book "Betting on Myself", there is a paragraph on page 185 that says
|
Mr. Dahlman, all due respect, but maybe you should actually post the full quote from the book, not just the very ending after the meeting was over. Since Inside the Pylons is allowed that same garbage in each post, I hope I'm allowed to post what Crist actually wrote, rather than a carefully chosen excerpt that is disingenuous at best.
From page 184 of "Betting on Myself"
"Kenny [Noe] had been surprisingly flexible about allowing me to pursue simulcasting and in-home betting, issues on which I had expected to get little support. On one trip we were scheduled to meet with state budget officials, and I was hopeful we could make some progress on another of my missions,
takeout reduction.
The meeting began badly. The budget chief said that NYRA's contributions to the state had been declining steadily and that while simulcasting and in-home betting were interesting long-term projects,
the state wanted more money now. He thought there was an easy solution: New York's 17 percent takeout on straight and two-horse bets was a little low compared to other states. Why not just bump it up to 20 percent?
I saw Dragone's eyes roll back in frustration, and
I opened my mouth to begin my stump speech about how takeout was too high already and a reduction was the only path to long-term growth. Kenny jumped in a second before I could begin.
"I couldn't agree with you more," he told the budget chief. "We'd be willing to do that if some of the money came back to us for purses and the facilities."
There was no arguing the point with him or with the state. The bottom line was that if NYRA wanted more purse money and a franchise renewal,
the state wanted more money out of the betting pools. Kenny told me to save my breath about how the press and public would react. A few years down the road we could go back and argue for a reduction, but we had to go along with this now or there wouldn't be a NYRA in a few years. The only question was whether the takeout was going up to 19 or 20 percent."
THEN, after all that, it goes into the oft-quoted part about the "scheme" where you make it sound like it was Crist's idea and not the state of New York, or that he could have done anything about it other than quit his job, in which case takeout would have gone up anyway.
"At least I was able to sell them on a scheme that made it look like a restructuring rather than a plain increase. Instead of raising everything from 17 percent to 19 or 20 percent, what if we went from 17 to 20 on two-horse bets such as exactas and daily doubles, but went down from 17 to 15 percent on win, place, and show? Since twice as much was bet on the two-horse wagers, the net effect would be the 2 percent increase
they were seeking, but at least this way New York could say it had the lowest win-place-show takeout in the country."
