Roger Cettina parlayed a lifelong interest in racing and a talent for high-stakes handicapping into a construction role helping rebuild Belmont Park. This brief explains who he is, how he won big in national contests, and what led him to oversee the racetrack’s reconstruction.
Roger Cettina is a Hall of Fame National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) competitor whose success in the NHC helped build his public profile.
Cettina balanced a long construction career with competitive horse betting, winning large NHC payouts in 2013 and 2015 that totaled nearly half a million dollars.
He joined AECOM Tishman as a senior vice president and led work on major New York projects before taking the contract to rebuild Belmont Park.
Roger Cettina is a 59-year-old construction executive and a celebrated competitive horse bettor who helped rebuild Belmont Park in Elmont, Long Island. Cettina grew up betting small amounts at Belmont as a teen and later became a repeat top finisher at the National Horseplayers Championship (NHC), eventually landing in the NHC Hall of Fame. He worked for AECOM Tishman and took a lead role on the Belmont reconstruction, combining his professional skills with a lifelong passion.
Cettina's involvement with racing began in his teens in Tenafly, New Jersey, where he spent afternoons at Belmont Park and took in night racing at the Meadowlands. He started with modest $2 and $5 wagers, then moved into national high-stakes contests about 15 years ago, sometimes staking more than $5,000 of his own money. He describes handicapping as a math puzzle rather than a cash grab and kept betting as a hobby alongside his day job.
Construction career and major projects
Professionally, Cettina held senior roles at AECOM Tishman and worked on significant New York developments, including the Goldman Sachs headquarters and renovations to the Javits Center, as well as One and Two Manhattan West near Hudson Yards. His construction résumé established him as a candidate to lead high-profile projects, which set up the opportunity to rebuild Belmont Park.
Cettina remains modest about betting gains, noting the role of luck and saying his betting earnings aren't enough to retire in New York or New Jersey. He continues to work full time in construction while maintaining his connection to racing: he co-owns two horses and still follows the sport closely. His hands-on involvement at Belmont combined his professional skills and personal history with the site he frequented as a youth.
The story links two worlds: a construction executive with a deep, practical knowledge of large projects and a seasoned competitive bettor whose contest success is noteworthy within the racing community. Cettina's trajectory shows how professional expertise and lifelong fandom intersected in the rebuilding of a major American racetrack.
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