"Racing is at a crossroads. One road gives up on racing and stakes the industry’s future on casino games. Many industry leaders are walking down this road. Is it the right road? That depends. If the goal is revenue in the short term, VLTs do the job. But if the goal is making new racing fans, this road leads to extinction. Betting horses and playing casino machines are unrelated activities. VLTs mean empty grandstands."

"Sometimes I lost on purpose. In particular, I can remember sitting on a bench outside of the Hollywood Park, a casino and horse track in Inglewood, Ca. A procession of fillies paraded skittishly from the parking lot to the track’s receiving area, where a group of children had gathered to welcome them. The spectacle of pennants, kids, and color upset me. I felt older, somehow, and suddenly became aware of my karma. The fillies finished their little march. I walked back to my table of friends who were no longer friends. For the next five hours, I played recklessly and without any hope for winning. Of course, I won big that day, and the next day and the next day, before I went broke again."

"It is not just professional poker that has changed out of all recognition in the past decade but all forms of gambling worldwide. The reason has been simple: for the first time anyone who wants to gamble and has an internet connection can do so." (First article in a special report on gambling from the Economist.)

@o_crunk: "The move online threatens some traditional forms of gambling, such as betting on horses" http://is.gd/dlqQX (racing is the only legal form)

"By toughening gambling laws and money-laundering sentences, the U.S. government pushed bookmakers offshore. The first time Dink opened a Daily Racing Form and saw advertisements for gambling parlors based in Antigua and the Dominican Republic, he couldn’t believe it. Bookmakers? Advertising? At worst it was a police scam, he thought, and at best it was a swindle." From the summer issue of Lapham's Quarterly, "Sports and Games," which includes a lovely photo of Man o' War.

"Gambling takes place in the mind, not at a slot machine, horse track, poker table or back alley dice game. Gambling is the metaphysical absorption and dispensation of risk for the purpose of sport with real-life consequences."