Saratoga Casino Hotel (formerly Saratoga Casino and Raceway) is an establishment in Saratoga Springs, New York. Saratoga Casino Hotel is home to a -mile standardbred race track, with a racino and hotel located inside the racetrack's grandstand. Saratoga Casino Hotel is not connected to the historic Saratoga Race Course thoroughbred race track located across the street on Nelson Avenue.
Facility
Saratoga Casino Hotel has three entrances: A primary entrance on Jefferson Street, where the Saratoga Harness Hall of Fame is located, a secondary entrance on Crescent Avenue, and a third entrance on Nelson Avenue, just north of its intersection with Crescent Avenue. The facility is located on the southeastern tip of Saratoga Springs. First opened in 1941 as a harness racing track, the facility was expanded in 2004 to include video lottery gaming terminals, or VLT as they are officially called. Then in 2016, a hotel was constructed on the north end of the property where a training track once existed.
The track is a -mile oval, where horses do two laps to complete the commonly used distance used in U.S. standardbred races. Because of the landscaping present in the infield and the country feel, the track has been dubbed "The most beautiful -mile track in the country. For some time, an expansion of the track to a -mile oval was being discussed, but it never came into fruition, and no further discussion about an expansion to the track's oval has come up in the last 10 years.
Inside, the first floor grandstand has been converted into the casino, with over 1,700 video lottery terminals, or VLT's for short. While the majority of these are slots, there are some poker, roulette, blackjack and keno games present, all in video format. There is a Diamond Jim's bar and two eateries, one a regular fare menu called Lucky Joe's, and the other a buffet restaurant called Garden Buffet. And there's a nightclub called Vapor's, home to live music, DJ remixes and other special events throughout the year. The second floor was renovated prior to the VLT inclusion, but hosts simulcast and live wagering as well as stands for fans to sit and watch the races, and Fortune's Restaurant, a sit-down casual dining facility serves meals during the racing season, typically between March–December. Attached to the Grandstand is the Clubhouse, essentially unchanged over the past 15 years that the facility has undergone massive changes. Open only during live racing, the clubhouse houses one bar and a quick food eatery for patrons watching the races, in addition to the accustomed wagering terminals.
Except for the craps and roulette, where the results are random and not based on previous outcomes, the slot machines are such where each play is dependent on the results of lottery scratch play ticket pre-determined by the centralized computer system—which in this case is the New York Lottery. All machines work on a voucher system, where the patron inserts money or a ticket, and all payouts are given in the form of a printed voucher, which may be inserted into another machine or turned into the cashier cage for payment.
History
Saratoga Casino Hotel has changed names over the past 20 years with the various changes to the facility. The track, originally dubbed Saratoga Raceway, was opened in 1941 as a facility for American harness racing and was the third racetrack to have pari-mutuel wagering. According to the history books, the Saratoga harness racing legend was born when two horses named Lady Suffolk (aka The Old Gray Mare) and Moscow were set against each other in a staged race in the city of Saratoga Springs.
During the height of racing, thousands of fans would visit to cheer on the horses. The track would offer grand-circuit racing, attracting some of the biggest names of racing at that day to the half-mile facility. The track was notorious in the early 1980s for being where Niatross collapsed and fell on the inner rail on the stretch run home, dealing him his first ever career loss. But the advent of off-track betting and the economy led towards sour times for racing at the Raceway. Not wanting to surrender, the management changed the name of Saratoga Raceway to Saratoga Equine Sports Center in the 1990s, to reflect the plans of bringing in more horse-related activities to the facility. But renewed interest didn't formulate with the name change, and at the worst, track management had to import races from other tracks across New York State in order to offer fill up a nine-race card.