$60,000 wagers pay off for unknown bettor

Last Saturday at Bangor Raceway, there were heavy downpours of rain and a couple of heavy downpours of wagering from one of Maine’s off-track betting parlors. The track survived the heavy rains, thunder and lightning, but wasn’t so fortunate with its parimutuel pools, when two unexpected wagers totaling $60,000 were bet on two of Bangor’s live races.

The combined loss to the track in commission and customer payback on those two races amounted to $11,493.96.

Although Bangor’s final parimutuel total for Saturday’s nine-dash program amounted to a record $98,681 for a nine-dash program, deducting the $60,000 wager, the combined total of live “on-track”parimutuel handle and off-track wagering for Saturday was actually $28,332, a more reasonable figure for a wet, rainy night.

The two wagers, for $24,000 and $36,000, were placed at Winners OTB at Cooks Corner in Brunswick, according to figures from Bangor’s computer printout sheets which track parimutuel wagering patterns from OTBs across the state. The net result of the two unusually large wagers created two negative show pools at Bangor Raceway. The Bangor harness track had to pay back more money to the big bettor and the general public for those races than it took in.

The first large Bangor wager was in the third race trot when someone placed a $24,000 show wager on Starburst LaManchi. LaManchi had to finish at least third in order for the wagerer to collect. The total show pool for the race was $24,426.60.

LaManchi won the race and his third place show payoff was $2.20. The $24,000 wagerer collected $2,400 in addition to his original bet. Additionally, the regular show bettors were paid for winning show tickets and the track had a minus pool of $4,501.42.

In the five-horse eighth race feature pace, the unknown bettor raised the stakes and wagered $36,000 to show on Mademoiselle Lucky. The horse won and again paid $2.20 to show. The show ticket payback to the public and the big bettor was $36,253. The high roller made $3,600 for his $36,000 wager, but again created a negative pool of $6,792.54, according to figures from the Maine State Harness Racing office in Augusta.

A spokesperson for Winners OTB in Brunswick said she had no idea whether the customer used a check or cash to pay for the bets and cited the customer’s right of confidentiality.

Fred Nichols, general manager for the investor group that has operated Bangor Raceway for the past three years, said Friday that the wagers were “practically a non-issue.”

He said in the future, he might not allow any show wagering on a five-horse field.

“It wasn’t all that bad and it has happened before, not at Bangor, but at other tracks in Maine,” Nichols said.

He added that the track recoups some of the losses from a 13 percent signal fee charge from the OTBs.

“Eight percent goes back to the track and five percent returns to the horsemen’s purse account,” he said. “The bigger the bet, the more the horsemen like it.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t want to see it happen every night, but it’s not the big issue that some people make it out to be,” Nichols said. “Perhaps you and I wouldn’t bet that kind of money, but it’s a free country. If someone lost $60,000 at a racetrack, we would gladly accept it and you wouldn’t write a story about it.

“During the most recent Hambletonian week at The Meadowlands, $850,000 in show money was wagered and $625,000 was bet on a trotter named CR Kay Suzie. When she broke, the grandstand area sounded like one giant Gregorian chant. But that sometimes happens in horse racing,” Nichols said.

Nichols said the success or failure of the Bangor meet does not hang on one incident.

“This is not the end of the world for us. Things have changed in the racing business and you can’t look at the on-track live handle anymore and tell the financial health of a race track. There are too many other factors to consider,” he said.