Casino news source: Miami Herald - http://www.miami.com/
Racing fans, slot gamblers try to co-exist at Gulfstream
BY ERIKA BOLSTAD
ebolstad@MiamiHerald.com
Adam Piacenza believes in luck. And good trainers and jockeys and stables with a long track record of winning horses.
But don't ask Piacenza, 80, if he believes in the new slot machines at Gulfstream Park, his home-away-from-home every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday during the winter horse-racing season.
''It used to be the sport of kings,'' Piacenza lamented last week as he handicapped the day's first race from a sunny seat with a view of the new paddock at the center of the massive gambling complex. ``Now it's the sport of average people, I guess.''
Since the casinos opened in recent weeks, slot machines have brought big crowds to Gulfstream and the old Hollywood Greyhound Track, which has been refashioned into a Mardi Gras-themed slots casino with little reference to the greyhounds on the outdoor track.
The new visitors have created something of a culture clash at Gulfstream, where the regulars who put a lot of research into their bets see the slot machine players as mindless gamblers, intent on a solitary activity.
''I wouldn't put a red cent in a slot machine,'' said Piacenza, shaking his head.
Even as he and other regulars waited -- racing forms in hand -- for the first horses to parade around the paddock last week, a bus dropped off 114 seniors from Margate. With walkers, canes and comfortable shoes, they stood in line to process their memberships in the casino's rewards club, the Good Luck Player's Club.
Few were there to bet on the horses. But they all intended to spend the complimentary lunch voucher and the $10 the casino loaded onto their Player's Club cards in the hopes they'll come back.
Mary Kaplan, 80, who long ago retired to Margate from Long Island, used to bet on long-shot horses with her husband back in New York. But these days, she enjoys slots, and she signs up for senior trips to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino at least once or twice a month.
''I just want to see what it's like,'' Kaplan said. ``I just hope they have a slot machine for me. I hear they only have 500.''
Inside the casino, the slots players are mostly a older, female crowd. They perch on stools, staring intently at the screens, one hand on their handbag for security, the other on the ''reload'' tab.
Inside the casino, dim lights, a floor-to-ceiling aquarium and the unrelenting electronic din of the slot machines give it an underwater feel where people can lose track of all time.
Sometimes, slots are just a way to pass an enjoyable day, said Peggy Blair, 80, who spends about two months each year in Hollywood.
''It's just a fun day,'' she said. ``You don't have problems while you're playing. You don't have any aches or pains while you're playing. You can forget it all.''
Friday was her first visit to Gulfstream -- although she and her friends make regular trips from Valley Forge, Pa., to play slots at Caesars in Atlantic City.
''This is all new to me,'' she said, watching the horses from the second-floor balcony before returning to the casino.
Outside, speakers blare the starting horn for the post parade. As horses approach the finish line, bettors crowd toward the front of the grandstand, cheering on their favorites: ``Run, sweetheart, run!''
With his chunky gold watch and pink-and-white seersucker Polo shirt, Malvern Burroughs looks like a high-roller as he watches one of the final races of the day. And he is. He laughs when he's asked about the name embroidered on his belt, ''Malabar Man,'' the horse that won him a $1 million prize in a 1997 harness race.
Racetrack veterans like Burroughs love their horses, but they don't want to come across as snobs. They see slot machines as the only way to attract the younger gamblers who see horse racing as their grandfather's game.
Slots are the only way to ''stop the downward spiral and bring horse racing back,'' said Burroughs, the owner of 45 thoroughbreds and 25 trotters, and one of the builders of the Meadowlands racetrack in New Jersey.
Even with the new emphasis on slots, though, Gulfstream is serious about horses.
Walk up to the front entrance on a race day and the horses are front and center, parading before post time where everyone can see them.
Other tracks in West Virginia and Toronto have successfully combined slots and horse racing, said Eric Wing, a spokesman for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.
''If Americans have shown anything in the last 20 years, it's that they love to gamble,'' Wing said. ``At the NTRA, we love any initiative that exposes more fans to horse racing. Obviously more people are visiting the track that otherwise might not do so.''
But as Kentucky native Shirley Metcalfe points out, it's impossible to cheer on a slot machine as it enters the home stretch.
There's just something about the horses, said Metcalfe, 75, waiting for Thursday's first race with her husband, Joe, 74. The couple spend every January at a rental efficiency in Hollywood, just so they can visit Gulfstream on race days.
She's such a horse-racing fan that she holds a seasonal job as a mutuel clerk, taking bets at Churchill Downs and other Kentucky racetracks in the spring.
''Just the thrill of those beautiful animals, just the thrill of watching them race their hearts out,'' Metcalfe said. ``We're real horse people.'' |
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