Power failure costly to OTB

New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation suffered a power failure on Sunday afternoon that cost the company an estimated $1 million in handle, according to OTB officials.

John Van Lindt, the executive vice president of the corporation, said that power to the company's main building, which houses the totalizator system providing betting services to its 75 OTB locations, went down at approximately 3:20 p.m. Eastern. Power was not restored until approximately 5:30, Van Lindt said, and totalizator services did not become operational again until approximately 6 p.m., after the bet-processing system's computers were rebooted.

The power failure occurred in the middle of Belmont Park's Sunday card. The power was restored just prior to the running of the Lady's Secret Stakes at Santa Anita, the middle leg of a three-race stakes series that was followed by the Norfolk Stakes.

New York City OTB handles an average of $2.7 million a day in wagers. Van Lindt said that any winning tickets that were purchased prior to the blackout were honored once the system was restored, and that winning tickets can still be redeemed at the OTB branches.