Dining stories from the sporting venues.
Coinstartled
Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hung out at the horse track weekends, during high school and college.
One night my pal Shyster and I decided to skip the wagering and see how many hot dogs we could eat. They were pretty healthy dogs and we would each buy one at the start of each race. I think spacing them out every 25 minutes or so was an obstacle as you kind of got full after a couple.
We made it to about the sixth dog and then agreed to get back to wagering.
Brats were only about 60 cents in the mid 1970's. To attempt such a feat at 2019 Yankee Stadium, you would need a second mortgage.
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Yea, but eating those hot dogs saved you money...at least for a little while. LOL
Seriously, I like this story. Short. Unexacting. But still a lot of possible extrapolations and life lessons. A lot to digest.
Follow-up question, why not keep the wagering going but make it about the dogs?
I always put a little butter on my bunyuns. I call it a butter dog. The butter goes good with the hot dog when it melts on the bunyun.
I eat very healthy and don’t eat fried food or processed food. I haven’t eaten at a fast food place in legit probably since the early 90’s. I would bet every penny I own that I could eat more Hot Dogs or Fast Food Burgers than 90% of anyone if I didn’t care about how I looked lol
Minimum bet was $2 and you usually showed up at the track with ten or twelve bucks to wager with. A bet and a dog per race would have been overwhelming.
See you shoulda learned to be a stooper IE picking up discarded tote tickets, a few of them winners that folks threw away thinking that the tickets were losers, and then you cashing them.
Or collecting losers so you can cash people’s winning tickets for a small fee 🤷♂️
10% is usually the standard going rate.
It was Detroit. Not many winners were tossed.
In the continuing era of inflation and rising prices, for decades now...one constant is the $2 bet at the track. That hasn't been increased.
Lemme guess...Northville Downs.
Hot dog $ note: Atlanta Mercedes Benz stadium, dogs since it opened were $2 and a cheeseburger was $5. This Flacons/United season, dogs are $1.50. You could go all Joey Chesnut up in there for dirt cheap.
Yep, that was one of the three local tracks.
Luckiest night of my life was in December 1975. Went to the track on a Monday night with two friends. One pestered me to give him a buck for half of his trifecta ticket. He bet his license plate number. Hit for 2 grand which was substantial at the time.
Working part time at a drugstore, I showed up on Wednesday. Owner gave me crap about missing work on Monday. Didn't know that I was added to the schedule that week.
Guy that covered for me was held up at gunpoint. Fortunately he was not injured.
Detroit was not the best place to hold a retail job.
You know the track 😂
They used to, probably still do, simulcast Northville at the track I used to frequent. Those 1/2 mile oval tracks were sometimes known as bull rings. As you know, often horses with the inside posts were the favorites because of the sharp turns, outside post horses often lost a lot of ground.
But the way they stiff harness horses, you never knew for sure who the yell was going to win. Stiffing harness horses isn't an art, it's a science. LOL
I used to work retail, four years in a camera shop. Great job, part time working my way thru high school and college. Fortunately the store was never robbed at gunpoint or any time for the cash register or anything like that, except for the occasional shoplifter who would try to sneak off with something and walk out the door.
Having watched that show Hardcore Pawn a number of times, if those customers were typical of retail customers in that area, that would be tough to take. But I'd still do it if I needed the money. LOL
Yea i do. 💸
I lived a mile from Northville and was close friends with the leading driver at the track. Anything could happen on that half mile.
It was 4 decades ago when i worked in Detroit. Most customers were friendly and were a pleasure to work with. That gets lost when you see 1000 murders in a town with a population of one million. Problem is, it takes only one armed idiot to destroy a life and as well a neighborhood.
I headed to a better area and sold jewelry for a couple of years. The problems were minimal.
I've seen those videos on YouTube of the miles and miles of what once were nice single homes in Detroit, now abandoned and worthless. We all know why, no sense expounding on it here.
Selling Jewelry - that was cool.
True story - I'm at the track watching a simulcast harness race, i can't recall the track. Well it was impossible to view the race because of fog. The announcer couldn't even call it. But the track at the top of the stretch showed a rear view which they never show that angle live. But they showed it because it was somewhat see-able.
Anyway, the horses are at the top of the stretch in single file. There was no lightening lane at this track. The second horse of course pulls out of the lane to try to pass the leader. The third horse looked like the driver had a ton of horse behind him and it was the favorite. But instead of pulling out into the outside lane, you could clearly see it live on the broadcast, he intentionally used the reins to keep the horse boxed in. The driver never made any effort whatsoever to go to the outside to try to win the race. A total stiff job if there ever was one.
Oh well, that's harness racing.
I will try to find my winning Tri Super ticket from 1993 for 14K. If I can find it I will post a pic
That's a nice one!
I should have bought the Perkdog green sheet that they sell at the track.
It’s a great story, I will try to find it and do a write up for ya. Ofcourse that was the only time I’ve ever won anything significant at the track though. Nobody likes to talk about the losers though lol
Lemme guess - Suffolk Downs. I've seen crazy form reversals at that track.
14k may have been the whole pool.
Nope. Seabrook Dog Track but it was a simulcast from Flagler I think
Some funny dog racing videos on Youtube. One race is a dog badly fell down on the first turn and was out of the race, but the dog then got up, ran thru the middle of the track and joined his rabbit chasing buddies in mid stretch to cross the finish line first.
Of course the "win" didn't count, the dog was disqualified, but I would have to say that is one competitive dog. LOL
That was almost certainly the whole pool at a dog track. The handles are not that large at dog tracks compared to thoroughbred tracks.
If you didn't have that ticket, the winning payout numbers would have been, first horse-second horse-all.
Found it! It was a photo finish for like 5 minutes, the best part was I originally bought the ticket “7 1 3 8” and a few minutes before the race started I went BACK to the window and switched the “3 and 8”. The woman was like “Are you sure” lol. The photo finish was stressful
Sweet!
Around 25 years too late to tell you this if you didn't already know. But you can get that full $3,934 right back at tax time by just showing $14,052 in gambling losses on your tax return, so there would be no total gambling winnings, hence no tax.
You would need to document the gambling losses somehow by collecting losing tote tickets, or say losing casino markers, etc. Otherwise if you were audited with no documentation of the gambling losses, the deduction wouldn't be allowed.
You just can't deduct gambling losses against any other type of earnings, only gambling winnings.
Yep I brought a brick of losing tickets to the tax lady and got it all back. I kept that brick for 7+ years after the fact just in case
Very smart.
I know you actually lost the money back. But others may pickup losing tote tickets off the track floor and use them for deductions against gambling winnings. In an audit, the IRS will actually look at the tickets, and if they have footprints on them, etc, then that person would be in trouble. Many years ago, i read about that happening to somebody and no deduction was allowed.
Also the IRS prefers that you have a track program corresponding to the dates on the losing tote tickets to "prove" you were actually there at the track. If you are using casino markers for deductions, the IRS better not see say a 10k marker used for deductions, but 10k in cash bank deposits, or say a new car bought for 10k in cash, or they likely won't allow those markers as deductions.
Probably shouldn't be advising anyone to cheat on their taxes.
Disregard previous post, Steverino.
Yea it’s really not cheating, it’s 100% legal and playing by the rules 👍
Any CPA would say the same thing.
What i stated is the law, only explained in stevek language.
Sorry, from the posts it wasn't really clear if you were using your own losing tickets or
had gathered losing tickets that other bettors had discarded.
Your own losing tickets, not cheating. Other people's losing tickets, cheating.
Simple as that.
Dog, you dog.
A buck ticket no less.
At a lowly dog track that even hard core gamblers that are jonesing wouldn't play.
And you went back and switched the numbers.
If you didn't post the ticket I would've filed this with the thousand other gambling "wins" I've heard of.
You are the man.
.> @hammer1 said:
It was dumb stupid luck is all, after I hit the Tri I was actually pissed because I found out it was the only the first half of the Tri/Super and the Tri didn’t pay much at all lol and I knew I had only 1 shot at the Super. It’s a great story but trust me I lost more than that on the NFL over the years. That happened in 1993 then in 1994 Foxwoods opened so I stopped going to the track. I haven’t bet on a race in probably close to 20 years and haven’t bet NFL since 2006. Poker and Casino only for me now 👍
Stu Ungar was probably if not definitely the greatest poker player of all time. He had an amazing photographic memory and analytical skills.
Ungar thought that he could use those skills to crush sports betting, but the bookies crushed him.
Ungar died dead broke at 45 years of age from sports betting and drug use.
The old saying is better to be lucky than good.
The NFL is a nightmare to get involved with as far as betting on it goes.
Very accurate statement. Funny thing is a lot of Poker Players fail because they look at numbers and percentages logically, I got a buddy who plays at my Texas Hold’Em home games and he rarely wins yet he knows the game and all the numbers like it’s his job and more times than not he is left shaking his head and crying about losing even though he had a better percent chance than the winner. I laugh and call him a “Student of the Game” 😂. He don’t get it but the sometimes the most dangerous player is the guy who really doesn’t know what he is doing.
It's not for me, but I can understand the fantasy football thing. Throw $20 or so at it, have fun with buddies from home or the internet, and be entertained by it for the season. Heck, a night out of bowling costs more than that.
But if folks think, especially young people, that they are going to outsmart sports bookies, well sorry to say if they think that, then they will find out the hard way that they can't.
I always try to tell people if they think that they are or can become a sports handicapping genius. For a year, don't make any real sports bets, but make "semi-real" bets just on paper as if you were actually betting with the bookies. Keep tabs of every bet that you would have actually made, and keep the profit-loss results on a chart. Don't forget to add the bookies juice to the losses.
At the end of the year, you will be very happy at the fact that you saved all of that real money by seeing on paper what fool's folly it is to try and beat sports bookies.
Fantasy Football is a HUGE industry. I spend easy about a $1000 on it every year between my buddy’s league and DraftKings. It has the potential to take a lot of money if your not cautious and there are actually more frustrating ways to lose doing fantasy than just the basic flag or a circus play in the NFL betting
I've always enjoyed playing poker. It's an extremely interesting game.
I enjoy playing poker on a "free to play" website, the only one which in my opinion is legitimate. At AOL poker, they aren't trying to sell you chips because the chips are not for sale, and the RNG isn't rigged to get you to think you're the new Phil Ivey so that you then deposit real money on their gambling website.
The AOL poker RNG is legit and the players are legit, no bots, collusion, affiliate commissions, or any shenanigans at all because there is no financial incentive to do so. The players are good to excellent. Probably better than the typical 1-2 or 2-4 type players at a gambling website. No rake so you can actually see how good you're really doing. The software is clean and easy to use.
If anyone is ever interested in playing there, sign up on AOL, it's free. Then PM me if you ever want to play me on there, give me your AOL poker name, and I'll try to look you up when you on are there and say hi.
Then i'll kick your arze and take your fictional chips because I am very tough to beat.
<<< sometimes the most dangerous player is the guy who really doesn’t know what he is doing. >>>
The key word there is "sometimes." I used to play poker with a guy like that, and frankly he was an easy player to beat. After all the cards were dealt, whenever he forcefully threw money down on the table it always meant he had nothing, and whenever he meekly put in his money it always meant he had a big hand. But for some inexplicable reason, most others at the table never seemed to pickup on those obvious tells, and that "sometimes" when that guy got there on a nut inside straight, one that was a bit difficult to see, he would go all-in, get called, and clean up.
So in that regard you are so right about a player like that being dangerous. But in the long run, a superior player will consistently beat that type of player.
No question about it but the point is a guy who doesn’t know what he is doing will play 7-2 or 9-4 and get into a big hand with it. A numbers player would never in a million years figure some idiot would be in a big hand with a decent pre flop raise with rags