Facility
Saratoga Casino and Raceway 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 Casino and Raceway 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.
The track is a ½-mile oval, where horses do two laps to complete the commonly-used 1-mile (1.6 km) 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 ½-mile track in the country. For some time, an expansion of the track to a ⅝-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 5 years.
Inside, the clubhouse is unchanged and is in use for all wagering when racing is underway on the oval outside. The grandstand has seen several changes, especially in the last 10 years. The second floor houses simulcast wagering, as well as enclosed stands and a restaurant. The first floor houses the over 1,700 video lottery terminals, or VLTs for short. They are mostly in the form of video slots, but other forms of video gaming are present, such as poker, roulette, keno and now craps. 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.
The first floor also contains a bar, a food court known as Lucky Joe's, a buffet-style restaurant, and a nightclub
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