Off-track betting - not legal in Florida during 1950s and 60s but thriving

Hialeah racing 1959
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

During the 1950s and 60s and perhaps as far back as race tracks had been operating in South Florida,  illegal off-track betting was conducted openly and within the shadow of most racing parks.

Grandstand admission was $1.75 in 1960. After the seventh race, admission was free. Gambling enthusiasts who did not want to pay the entrance charge would hand a bet through a fence to a friend, family member or runner. In the 1950s and 60s a runner was paid 25 cents to place the bet at the window.

Track management looked the other way. They did not want to appear petty by requiring all to pay the entrance charge, especially when they—and the state—still got their 15 percent (1960) take on the bet. Besides, the quarter runner's fee rendered behind-the-fence-betting more expensive than from the grandstand. 

It was common to see women and children standing on the other side of fences, the “off-track” areas. Most were families visiting from states where children were allowed at race tracks so they brought them not knowing they were barred from entrance at Florida racing parks. So, fathers would enter and take bets through a fence from their wives.

I haven’t seen through-the-fence-off-track-betting in my lifetime but I’ll wager it’s not allowed anymore. And off-track betting is still illegal in Florida. Each pari-mutuel facility does offer televised viewing and wagering on selected race and game performances from other Florida facilities, other states, and even other country’s tracks and frontons.

Sources:

www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/pmw/faq-pmw.html#offtrackbetting

Miami News, Jan. 10, 1960.

Tags: Florida gambling history, race track betting, Florida racetracks, off-track betting, OTB

Meyer Lansky buys Colonial Inn from Lou Walters - 1945

Colonial Inn, circa 1946.  Courtesy of Broward County Historical Commission

By Jane Feehan

The purchase of the Colonial Inn* in Hallandale for $80,000 topped the week’s real estate transactions reported by the Fort Lauderdale Daily News, June 9, 1945.

Meyer Lansky (1902-1983), an organized crime figure, bought the property from Louis E. “Lou” Walters. The Colonial Inn, near Gulfstream Park, was closed from 1941 until Walters opened it December 22, 1944. The inn operated for five days. Walters, father of today’s TV personality Barbara Walters, was a night club “impresario,” with clubs and shows in Las Vegas and New York City (He died in 1977.) 

After closing the Colonial Inn, Walters took his night club show to the Cabaret Restaurant in Miami Beach. He was the original operator of the Latin Quarter on Palm Island in Miami Beach and the famed Latin Quarter in New York City.

Lansky was also known for “dabbling” in the nightclub biz. The Fort Lauderdale Daily News noted his affiliations with nightclubs in Broward County and reported “future plans for operating the Inn await Lansky’s return from New York City.”

Those future plans were probably known to many. Lansky, long affiliated with mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano, was expanding his gambling operations in Florida and Las Vegas, and later to Cuba. He opened the Colonial Inn December 1945. The Inn became a profitable, posh East Coast gambling establishment. It was closed by the government in 1948. For more on the demise of the club, and Meyer Lansky, search labels at right.

* Not to be confused with the Colonial Inn on Motel Row.

For more on Lansky, see index.

Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Hallandale history, Broward County history, Meyer Lansky, Colonial Inn in Hallandale, South Florida gambling history, Broward County in the 1940s, Lou Walters , Florida mob history, 
film researcher, Jane Feehan
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