Bettors Call Satellite Facility a Winner

Jim Haupt leans back, takes a draw from his well-worn pipe and lets his eyeballs gallop across the room like racehorses on the loose.

Now this, he says, is a satellite wagering facility, a veritable horse bettor’s paradise. Just look at the television screens--more than 430 of them! Wherever you look--this way and that way, up and down, there’s a color television screen showing his beloved ponies in action all over Southern California.

And talk about plush carpeting--all burgundy and green, easy on the eyes. And those nifty-looking tables and chairs. And ample betting windows, money machines and check-cashing windows. It’s like something out of a regular Holiday Inn conference room. Or some swanky Las Vegas casino.

He points toward the full-service bar as well as the clean and comfortable bathrooms. For this Escondido resident and four-times-a-week track fanatic, the $15-million satellite facility that officially opened Thursday at the Del Mar Fairgrounds has instantly turned the gambling life into the easy life.

“They did good,” Haupt says, his voice coming on like a strong finisher. “They did good.”

He and his wife, Norma, were among thousands of horse race aficionados who turned out Thursday for opening day at the 86,000-square-foot betting center, which officials say promises to pamper local gamblers like no other similar place in the nation.

The new betting center, which replaces the old one that opened in 1987, can accommodate more than 4,000 customers. It also features a Sports Club to provide viewing of more events than just the sport of kings, a Saddle Club offering restaurant-style dining and a free video library of past races at area tracks.

And those television screens. One wherever the eye might wander. “When the race is going on, and all the sets are showing the same scene,” satellite wagering manager Barbara Dowdy said, “it’s really a thing of beauty.”

Bing and the boys never would have believed it. That’s Bing Crosby and fellow Hollywood actors such as Pat O’Brien, who founded the Del Mar Track in 1937. Not only has the space age come to the place where the surf meets the turf, but officials were preparing to tear down the old 9,500-seat grandstand that had served the track for so many years.

Within hours of the betting center’s opening, workers were to begin dismantling the general-admission seats--the beginning of a three-phase, three-year project to replace the 56-year-old grandstand, which, in recent years, has been ruled unsafe structurally in case of fire or earthquake.

In its place will be an $80-million grandstand seating 15,000 race-goers and replacing the aging Turf Club and other facilities.

“Who would have believed that, 54 years later, there would be projects like this happening at the track,” Dowdy said. “Not Bing. Not any of us. But he would have liked it. Because race tracks need to change--to cater to patrons more than they have in the past.

“This is a whole new step in the racing industry. There’s just no other place quite like it. Bing would have been proud.”

Don’t forget the Haupts. For $3 admission--patrons of the Saddle Club will pay double that--the couple could view all 13 races Thursday from the Pomona track near Riverside in air-conditioned comfort, drinking free Champagne and listening to the mariachi band brought in for the day.

For Jim Haupt, the scene washed away unpleasant memories of the old satellite-wagering quarters in the grandstand area, which had a general-admission room that many have compared to an old high school cafeteria.

“What got me is that the urinals always stopped up,” he recalled. “If you ever fainted in that rest room, or had the gumption to walk in there barefoot, you were in trouble.

“But the dedicated horse players always just held their noses and sallied forth. It took more than leaky toilets to keep us from making our bets. But this place is great. Bing would have flipped. He would have sung a song about this place.”

As they lounged in any of the several gaming rooms, patrons recalled the dusty days of placing bets at the old facility.

“They charged you three times the going rate for the food, and you couldn’t even eat it, it was terrible,” said La Jolla real estate agent Dick Scanlan. “My brother runs a deli in Del Mar, and I used to sneak in there before post time to eat. I hope that changes.”

Joe Mattera took a break from his odds-making exercises to bid a swift goodby to the old way of satellite wagering at Del Mar. The only ones who are going to miss the old place, he says, are the termites.

“You had to line up an hour before the place opened just to get a seat,” said the 79-year-old La Jolla resident, who, dressed in a crisp sports jacket and turquoise bolo tie, professed to have placed bets at Del Mar ever since the joint opened during the Great Depression.

“They didn’t have enough seats,” Mattera said of the old facility. “They didn’t have enough television screens. Half the time you couldn’t see what was going on. Not like this. A blind man couldn’t miss the action in this place.”

But not everyone, you can bet, is as enamored with the new wagering facility. Take the folks over at Gamblers Anonymous.

“It’s a great day for normal people, but not anyone who’s a compulsive,” said a counselor who identified himself only as Al, a former compulsive gambler. “In fact, there’s a lot of peopl1696614695started.”

He said the bigger numbers at the satellite facility will improve attendance at another nearby gathering--the Gamblers Anonymous meeting held each Monday night at a church not far from the track.

“Right now, probably 15 of the 25 regulars probably wished they’d never seen a racehorse in their life,” he said. “Those numbers will be going up, you can bet on that.”

Larry Corrigan, a psychotherapist who has counseled compulsive gamblers in the San Diego area for the past 15 years, says the subject of the new betting center has come up time and again in sessions with his patients.

“It’s like a new trap opening up right before their eyes--and we’ve got to devise new treatment methods to deal with it,” said Corrigan, who estimated that as much as 5% of the adult population in America is made up of potential compulsive gamblers.

But Del Mar Racetrack officials stressed that neither the new satellite facility nor the grandstand project is paid for with tax dollars.

“The new betting center was funded by revenues from the Del Mar Fairgrounds,” said public information officer Shawn Riley. “And the grandstand project will be funded through receipts from the new center--not taxpayer dollars.

As he sat in the new Sports Club, poring over the Daily Racing form, the only money that concerned Arglista Davis of Chula Vista was his chosen wagers for the day.

“I don’t care what they say--I love this place,” he said. “There’s only one Del Mar in the world. And now this is a new and improved Del Mar.”