BCA at the OTB

Welcome to the Kingston OTB (Off-Track Betting for those of you non-loser, non-degenerate gambling low-lifes out there...a place where the scum of the Earth assembles to bet on horses) - where I found this note posted above the (naturally) broken urinal.

Many of you know (and the rest will likely soon find out) that I like to gamble. I consider myself the BCA (Best Capper Alive) and while betting the horses is my weakness, I like to think I can spot some value better than the average schmuck. So, in an effort to get my life in order this summer (and out of necessity since I am broke) I gave myself a challenge - a $25 bankroll for the OTB (Belmont Stakes next Saturday and any trips to actual race tracks not included) with the goal being to turn it into $250.

Today was Day 1 of the quest. Here is how it went.

Upon entering through the complex's magnificently dirty double-glass doors, I was greeted with a classic OTB great debate. A man with a mild mullet creeping out of an old American Choppers baseball cap (hair color best described as a peppery drab orange marmalade) and matching orange collared American Choppers button down was arguing with an approximately 275 pound, 5', former athlete, replete with back-hair and wife-beater, white high top basketball sneakers (possibly Rick Barry hand-me-downs), high slightly ruffled white socks and a walk that could only be described as: upper body battling lower body, what happens when you're too fat to waddle. The argument was over whether or not Preakness winner and filly sensation Rachel Alexandra was really a super-horse (American Choppers got diced as big man ended a 10 minute debate with the "first horse to ever win The Preakness from the 13th post" line).

And that is why I love the OTB, nothing else can turn you into a bigger scumbag while simultaneously raising your self-esteem quite like hanging out there. A quick glance around revealed an Asian man with bushy (possibly hair-sprayed) eyebrows that literally stretched as wide as his shoulder blades. An old white guy with the flip-down sunglasses/glasses that I haven't seen used as a fashion statement since Dwayne Wayne from A Different World.


There was the Hannford butcher with his Hannford smock (to be fair it was clean) on..he literally sat there for hours in the smock. At one point, in walked in a woman with a bright lime-green shirt on, voo-doo-ish beads around her neck, scraggly black gypsy hair, right arm struggling to carry a red bag. Her eyes never blinked. She walked mechanically with mouth wide-open (miraculously not drooling) and fingers stuck up both nostrils (not kidding) as she droned to no one in particular "One dollar winner instead of nothing." As she headed over to the scratch-off machine, some slightly less sad soul walked over and handed her another one dollar winning lottery ticket, as she noted "You're a sweetheart" about two minutes after he walked away and she finally processed what he had given her.

There were the Jamaican drug-lords (have literally heard them discussing drug deals or I would not accuse) who walk in with fat wads and come away from the ticket window with stacks of betting slips that would seemingly make me believe they said "Give me every horse to Win, Place and Show in every race at every track please." The one was wearing a see-through mesh jersey, colored like the Jamaican flag. They speak patois and yell words no one else can decipher before throwing all their tickets up in a mass of depreciated confetti (which will usually be scooped up by some bum who will hope a horse on a ticket was scratched and they can hand it in for a refund).

The place is littered with old men to the right, half of which are bitching about horses or jockeys while the other half bitch about their wives. Walk back ten minutes later and the half that were bitching about their wives have found a jockey or horse to bash, while the others have forgotten about that "short-shit fucking pea-brained jockey" and are now bitching about their wives.

I will spare you many of the other bizarre creatures, peculiar conversations and strange happenings. As for my results? After missing a couple early races, I placed 10 dollars worth of bets.

You guessed it, a $15 bankroll for the rest of the summer! Even my favorite filly, the greatest named horse of all-time Lemon Chiffon let me down by missing the board in the DRF Race of the Week at Hollywood. Until the next (and probably last) installment of the BCA at the OTB, good luck gamblers.