While Saturday’s Belmont Stakes may result in the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years, it could also mark the last hurrah for the New York City Off-Track Betting Corp.

Despite ongoing negotiations between elected officials in Albany, the city is planning to shut down the legal gambling operation on June 15. Its closure has to do with the large amount of money it is mandated to give back to the state and the racing industry, which makes it unprofitable for the city.

Many who frequent the more than 60 parlors around the city now must figure out another way to make wagers.

“I guess I’ll just go to the casinos,” a 46-year-old Bronx native, Diaz Leon, said yesterday at an OTB in Chinatown. “This is the only place where you can legally make a couple thousand dollars a day without having to work for anybody.”

Even though OTB’s demise appears imminent, some fans of legalized gambling think the OTB has a final stretch ahead of it.

One of them, 95-year-old George Scien, a retired World War II veteran, is holding out hope that a last-minute deal can be struck.

“I don’t think they are going to actually stop it,” Mr. Scien said yesterday. “Someone is going to step in.”