Friday, December 11, 2009

Lucky Leo makes living off OTB tickets


From Fox 5:

Without placing a single bet, a man in New York City has made a decent living on off-track-betting. Jesus Leonardo collects discarded betting slips (many of them) and finds winners that others have tossed, according to The New York Times.

"It is literally found money," he said to the paper. Leonardo spends more than 10 hours a day feeding the found slips through a ticket scanner. He said he has been doing this for the last 10 years and figures that he has won about half a million dollars on thoroughbred races across the country.

Off-track betting, or OTB, refers to sanctioned gambling on horse racing outside a race track.

Leonardo is a "stooper" -- a person who hangs around racetracks and betting parlors picking up tickets thrown away by others. Stoopers have been part of racing since the 1930s; they are tolerated as long as they do not harass customers.

He collects thousands of tickets each day. He even hired two others to collects tickets at other betting parlors. He takes the trash home and organizes the tickets into stacks of 300, then returns the next day and feeds them through the ticket scanner. The work is intense enough that he takes a lunch break.

According to The Times, Leonardo, who has a wife and two teenage boys, fell into his career in 1999 after tossing a $900 winning ticket and then frantically searching for it. He collected tossed tickets, but never found his winner, instead he found two other winners worth $2000. He has been doing it ever since.

His winnings are all filed with the IRS.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This asshole just put himself out of business...........now all thes losers will scan their tickets before tossing them!

Tommy "tout" said...

He stoops to conquer!

That kind of bending over sure beats getting f----d by the Queens clubhouse pols without pay!

I'll gladly grab the ground for some cash at the track or the OTB parlors during this economic downturn!

Anonymous said...

He isn't out of business, the 'losers' are to lazy to do what he does.

I am stunned that the Asian bottle collectors haven't cornered this market.

Anonymous said...

Good for him! I guess he helps with clean up, as well.

Anonymous said...

Only in New York City...

Anonymous said...

OTB is now officially in the shit. NYRA came out of bankruptcy but is still the same as before it went in, so is really still in the shit.

Aqueduct Casino is supposed to fix racing.

Pick The Seminole Indians and Hard Rock. Bring on more corruption, drugs, prostitution and alcohol abuse to Aqueduct.

Why change now? Lets keep the taint of corruption surrounding what was once the "Sport of Kings" in New York.

We have been waiting for the Aqueduct Casino decision for about 8 years now. What a joke.

Anonymous said...

if you are a down on your luck lawyer
consider this betting proposition or if you want to audition for law school consider this:
ny city otb upon the advice of its counsel ira block opened on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday and made money. sadly the big boss did not cause the errand boy to go to court to vindicate the corporation's right to do so.
NY PML Sec. 105 prohibits racing on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday but not betting and thus does not apply to the OTBs. In the alternative NY PML Sec. 105 has no secular purpose and /or expresses a clear religious preference in violation of eg NY Art. 1, Sec. 3.
Some bum told me that in NY you can bring a constitutional tort pursuant to perhaps a NY Court of Appeals Decision Brown v Oneonta.
I say it is simple insanity AKA politics for any public benefit corporation facing bankruptcy or insolvency or book cooking not to be open on days when it can lawfully do so and make money. On Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday many profitable and popular out of state tracks run and people want to bet on them eg without having to travel to NJ and the Meadowlands.
May be Lucky Leo wants to try his luck in court. Obviously he can read and Ira Block Esq. of NYC OTB and the prior history of NYC OTB shows him the path.

DIY do it yourself because down on their luck bum public benefit corporations won't open for you without the force of a Court.

Give em hell someone. Sue Sue Sue
Seems like a good bet.