Sycuan OTB is back!

[Joel]

Reading Jeff Nahill's colum in today's NC Times, it appears the Sycuan OTB is back.

They had a huge room for horse racing in the mid-late 1990's and early 2000's. Several years ago they took out the OTB for more slots.

Nice to see it back..

[MaryS]

Opening in early August, according to their website.

[JDinSD77]

Lived very close to Sycuan for a few years. Went from the dinkiest otb to the "big room" which was the best otb anywhere in the country(I've been to hundreds across the U.S.) Was completely distraught when they closed down the horse betting. I still feel after talking to people there that there was more to the story than just expanding slots. Seems the new proposal is a very scaled down version of an otb. Really wish Viejas would expand its otb because on weekends and any big horse days it's standing room only.

[TheGoose]

105- since you are such a BIG SHOT poker player at Pechinka, maybe you can talk to the Chief and get an OTB there.........

[Marat]

Sounds pretty spicy. . . .

[Joel]

Really wish Viejas would expand its otb because on weekends and any big horse days it's standing room only.

True that.

Anyone who thinks horse racing is dead should try go to Viejas or Barona on any Saturday during the year.

You often have to arrive by 11 a.m.just to get a seat..

[Pooch]

I visit Barona when on vacation every year and I've seen people start arriving at 8am to play the NY races.

I never really liked it at Sycuan. Towards the end, they added new individual monitors....but the buttons on them would always break and it would be stuck on one channel. Security didn't like to let people that arrive early to sit there and handicap the races. They would have it roped off and people had to wait and would sit at the empty table games and handicap the races until they opened the OTB area. IMHO...it was not fan friendly. I hope they made improvements. They should put it near the poker room. I've also been to Sycuan many many times and I don't know if they have room to expand, they would have to move the slots.

[Clockerbob]

Really wish Viejas would expand its otb because on weekends and any big horse days it's standing room only.

True that

I gave up on both Barona and Viejas horse books...beautiful
rooms/staff/food///monitors//etc// but both are too small and you need headphones because
some old timers just come there to sit and talk..I heard the reason
for no expansion and sycuan closing is the Indian casino's take on the mutuel handle is only 1%