On the wrong track: OTB can't be fixed unless horse racing is repaired too

This article originally appeared in the New York Daily News, and hits on some very good points. The depleted fan base is the issue and that has to do with handicapping and betting. And racing won't get fixed until handicappers stop playing a losing game.

Gov. Paterson's latest scheme to rescue New York City Off-Track Betting from bankruptcy is to hire corporate turnaround specialist Greg Rayburn for the princely sum of $125,000 a month.

You read that right.

This is a very bad bet.

With due respect to Rayburn's respectable bona fides, neither he nor any other CEO can fix what ails this money-losing gambling outfit on his own.

That's because horse racing in New York State, its fan base deeply depleted, has been limping along for decades. Yet rather than grapple with that clear-as-day economic reality, the state has tried every which way to prop up the pastime with an endless stream of bailouts, subsidies, gambling revenues and other jerry-rigged solutions.