New York City OTB president Bill Carnevale insisted yesterday that OTB’s cutoff of the live racing signal from Monticello Raceway as of July 15 was business, not personal, and had nothing to do with the upstate harness track’s successful opposition to simulcasting nighttime out-of-state thoroughbred racing, a proposal OTB favored.

“I could talk until I’m blue in the face and everybody will still believe it’s retaliation,” Carnevale said. “I am not retaliating. If I was going to retaliate, why continue to take their wagers?”

Carnevale said OTB has a limited number of signals it can broadcast on cable TV and into its parlors and teletheaters and chose to concentrate on thoroughbred racing during the day.

“We decided, in terms of our business, to minimize the cost of daytime simulcast operations,” he said. “We currently bear the expense of simulcasting Monticello. Their vendor, Autotote, charges us the expense of uplinking their signal at $10,000 a month.

“Unfortunately, what seemed like a good business decision now is seen as less than that because of the so-called retaliation.”

Carnevale said OTB has received “not one complaint, zero” from its customers about dropping the signal but acknowledged that OTB’s handle on Monticello races has dropped off dramatically.

OTB patrons bet an average of $110,000 a day on Monticello before the signal was cut off, a third of the track’s daily handle. But wagering dropped to $36,000 last Monday and $38,000 Tuesday from $124,000 and $126,000 the week before.

“We’ve always had a good relationship with OTB and hope they would reconsider their decision,” said Monticello president Cliff Ehrlich.

Carnevale said there is “still a possibility, even a probability,” that OTB will resume simulcasting Monticello when the new calendar for August is confirmed.