Bettors’ Cash Is in Safe Hands With This Del Mar Veteran : Keeping Track of Millions Daily

For the last 20 years, Paul O’Halloran has calmly sat next to a room filled with money--watching over the almost $3.5 million in wagers that pours daily into the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club--and has seen the frenzied thousands who dream of winning some of that green.

But even the typically cool, composed O’Halloran admits he, too, gets a little frenzied when he suspects some of the fortune may be missing.

“I never really think of it as money,” said O’Halloran, who as the race track’s mutuels manager oversees about 400 tellers and makes sure every lucky patron gets his fair share of the take.

“Most of the time while we’re working with it, for all we know, it may as well be bricks or pieces of wood,” O’Halloran said Wednesday. “It’s only when we think there may be a shortage . . . . That’s when we know it’s money. “

Room Is Isolated

In such moments of crisis, O’Halloran said, “things get pretty frantic in here.” But otherwise, his small, bare office--sandwiched between the “money room” and the computer-filled “tote room”--is isolated from the carnival atmosphere that permeates the race track.

“Most of the time if we’re short on cash, it’s likely one of our tellers gave out a little too much,” O’Halloran said.

That problem, although unpleasant for the parimutuel clerks, is easily solved. “The amount that’s short comes out of their paycheck,” he said.

Although his office is buried deep within the grandstand, O’Halloran can keep tabs on all the action with the help of four television monitors. At the flick of a switch, he can watch any of the tracks 13 wagering areas to determine if more clerks are needed to keep pace with growing lines of patrons.

Keep Lines Moving

“We try to keep all the lines moving as quickly as possible so everybody gets a chance to place a bet,” O’Halloran said.

But since bettors have a tendency to wait until the last minute, that’s not always possible.

“A lot of them wait until the horses are just about to enter the gates and make a last check with the boards to see if the odds have changed,” O’Halloran said.

“They wait so long and then complain they got shut out. You can hear them tell a friend, ‘Aw shucks, I had a winner,’ ” he said, laughing. “But if they were about to bet on a loser, you won’t hear a word.”

Gets a Report

At the end of each race, O’Halloran steps into the “tote room” and gets a report from systems manager Gary Howell.

“This is where all the odds are calculated and results are tabulated,” Howell said. “As far as the betting operation goes, this room is the brain.”

With Howell’s help, O’Halloran can control all the displays on the public parimutuel tote boards and keep track of each betting machine operated by his tellers.

“It’s amazing how things have changed,” said O’Halloran, who has worked at the track since 1945. “We used to have seven men frantically adding up the figures. Now with these computers we get everything we need instantly.”

Lured by Excitement

O’Halloran recalled that it was the excitement of the races--watching the patrons’ mood swings and the carnival atmosphere--that attracted him to the races. He got his first job as a teller at a track in Narragansett, R.I., but put his career on hold when he enlisted in the Navy in 1941.

He was still wearing his Navy uniform when he started working as a teller at Del Mar. When World War II ended, O’Halloran was taking bets.

“I still remember the date,” he said. “It was Aug. 14, 1945, and I was working the windows when Pat O’Brien’s voice”--the actor was one of the founders of the race track--”came over the public address system saying the Japanese had surrendered. We were all jumping up and down--the tellers, the patrons. We were all hugging each other.”

Even after all these years at the race track, O’Halloran said, he has never been attracted to the betting urge.

“With all the people I know at the track--patrons, trainers, owners--I could get a tip on every horse for every race,” O’Halloran said. “But a lot of these people, like the trainers, have fallen in love with their horses and they all believe their horse will win. With biased tips like that, I decided to hold off on the bets,” he said.