How To (Moderately) Survive Your First Trip To An OTB
1. Do Not Bring People from the OTB back to the bar
If you'll notice, our Derby bar guide is highlighted by bars in close proximity to OTB venues. As such, you can slap down a bet and then head over for a beer. Very important piece of advice: even if you meet someone at an OTB who seems helpful and informative, going so far as to explain to you what "a trifecta" means or whatever, do not even remotely consider taking this person to the bar catty corner to the OTB. The percentage chance that he or she can speak of divorce as a plural idea is too high for you to risk alienating yourself from other bar patrons.
2. Try not to be a girl
This would be hard, understandably, if you are a girl. (Cue Family Guy: "My other p*nis is a v*gina.") No matter where you self-rate yourself on an attractiveness continuum, you will be unabashedly hit on for the entire duration in which you stand in the dankness. No way around this, whatsoever. Your best bet is to bring a dude with you. If the dude looks like someone you have made a one-night mistake with at some point in your less-mature past, that might only make things worse. Lifer bettors are surprisingly very in tune with patterns. They will bring this up.
3. Some type of air freshner
OTBs tend to smell. (This happens often when you put a bunch of people who are unclear as to whether it's day or night in one area. Vegas, on the whole, smells.) It would be cool to roll up in a OTB, slam a Glade Plug-In into an available power socket, and go about your business. Do you have the balls for it?
4. Don't punch above your weight class in the vocabulary sense
Bettors know things that "normal" people who may be reading this article have no idea about. You never want to get in a discussion with a lifetime bettor and start using terms like "minus pool" or "quinella." You will be eaten alive in this type of discussion. Those dudes can smell fear and lack of experience, as they are the only odors strong enough to drown out "failure" and "depression."
5. Get in and out as quickly as possible
Simplest way: grab The New York Post on your subway ride to meet your friends. Look at their odds box. Avoid the out-and-out favorite, because media types never predict things correctly. Look at the horse with odds No. 2 and No. 3. Pick the cooler name, walk in, bet on that horse, and when the dude coughs in your general direction and asks if you want to do a trifecta, politely nod and take your single-winner ticket. Then head to the bar. If you're in and out in less than five minutes with no discernible life-altering issues or drastic change in emotional outlook, you've done well for yourself.
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