Mural > Customer ?

In 2010, on taking too much rake from customers and not fixing it earlier:

•  According to the interim report by the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, internal emails at NYRA showed that some of its executives were well aware a law with a maximum takeout rate of 26% was about to sunset or expire, and that those 26% wagers would have to be recalculated at a 25% (or lower) charge beginning Sept. 15, 2010.
• "Off the record, we have been working on this for some time. We originally had thought that we would announce this for Saratoga but political forces intervened. Since we are showing substantial losses in 2010 and 2011 and we have been smacked around by Cuomo (and he could check the SRWB from approving), we decided to wait.

Fast forward to today:

•  Two years ago, the New York Racing Association's leaders commissioned a $250,000 mural that would immortalize them on the wall of the state's biggest thoroughbred track. Weighed down by lost OTB revenues and high employee and retiree benefit costs, NYRA has lost nearly $30 million in the past two years.

Unless I am reading that wrong, political forces (i.e. Cuomo) that would make NYRA look poor were in play with the takeout snafu. So, bettors were continued to be overcharged because of it.

At the same time, political forces and a blood-red P and L were not in play when commissioning a $250,000 mural?