Racing on the Screen

Ever since "Bank Nite" shows began to run afoul of local anti-lottery laws, movie exhibitors have been looking for a new gimmick to pep up the tired box office. Last week in Denver, where Bank Nite itself was invented, a theater man named Robert Patrick thought he had the answer: horse races on the screen that pay off to the audience.

As the moviegoer enters Patrick's Lakewood Theater, he gets a stub and a chance to pick a winner by number from the list of entrants in three races. He keeps half the stub, leaves the other half with the management. During the evening's program, Patrick then runs old newsreels of three unidentified races (soon to be replaced by specially shot color films). Any patron who wins the three-horse parlay exchanges his half-stub for the evening's purse (usually $100).

To keep everything legal, Patrick notes in fine print that the racing fan need not enter the theater to play. But since the bettors want to see their horses run, they have been swarming past his box-office window, anyway. Recalling that Bank Nite netted its inventors more than $1,000,000, enterprising Exhibitor Patrick has already applied for a patent on his new gimmick, has received 100 applications from. Colorado theaters that want to lease his scheme, expects to set up a national leasing system within a few months.

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