Simulcast Controversy

[tomcat]

Yesterday, the 5th race at Churchill has started a controversy. I was with some pretty good handicappers at Keeneland, and most were all over the #4 horse in the 5th race. He was at a nice price at 9/2 while they were loading. At the first pole his odds dropped to 4/1, as he crossed the finish line his odds had dropped to 5/2. Needless to say, a lot people were ticked! (me too).
At the time Nick Nicholson (sp) the new president of Keeneland was there also watching, so everyone started to complain to him about odds dropping after the race started. He said sometimes it takes 20 seconds to post the money coming in and seeing it reflect in the odds. A number of us refuted that because it should only take about 2 seconds. Anyway, obviously we were not getting a chance to respond as bettors to the odds change. We all felt that once the horses are off, the odds should be locked at that point.He agreed with us and promised to talk to his people about this problem.

[MikeDee]

The late odds reporting thing is something that has been discussed before on other boards. IMO there is really no excuse for it except that the race tracks and the racing industry do not want to spend the money necessary to upgrade their computer systems and networks to deliver real time odds in a timely fashion. This is all a function of each simulcast site being being able to process and send wagering data to the site that is running the race and that site updating the live odds and everyone involved having computers that are fast enough and networks that are robust enough to get the job done.

Really kicks the value bet theory in the butt when you wager on a 4-1 shot that ends up 2-1 or worse.

[Carl]

I bet an ev1 at Suf yesterday that closed at 25-1, paid $61.20.

What seems to be happening (and it has in my memory been forever thus) is that the chalk and near chalk gets hit late, causing the longshots to go up in price.

Having said that, I would like to see the correct odds on the horse be there as they leave the starting gate. Eliminates the thoughts of collusion. I read one poster who's opinion I respected post at Youbet that a friend of hers used to sit with the pres of a New England track in his office and they were still punching out tickets as the horses rounded the first turn....

[Gramps]

It's more complicated than that. There are people actually past posting the races by as much as 45 seconds after off time, with and/or without the complicity of track/simulcast/phonebet employees. But there is, as minetioned, also the problem of the monies arriving later than they need to, due to outdated software/hardware and networking. The solution is to get better harware, software, and networking that will not lock out the betting properly and also send totals into the track faster so that the final odds show up seconds after the race starts, not a full two minutes later.

[hurrikane]

That is a pretty big accusation to make Gramps..and your evidence is?

[Gramps]

If I had evidence, the tracks and simul centers would also have evidence and would have eliminated the problem by now. They don't know exactly how it's being done. But there's no question that it's happening, and more than a few articles have appeared about it in various racing publications, including the DRF.

I use E-Horse-Arbitage, which is a tote tracker found at http://www.toteboard-daytrader.com. It does a good job of giving the odds picture on the win betting and on the place and show pools in ratio to the win pool, as well as similar for the exactas and quinellas. If you like watching how the money moves, it's well worth the $15 a month.

Without getting in to a lot of stats or details, of all the betdowns of a full point in the odds or more (Arbitage measures in tenths of a point) to a final off-odds of 2.9-1 or less (the low final odds requirement is there so that the horse has to take a reasonable amount of action to achieve the betdown), taken from off-time to final update, about 60% have won, but more importantly, about 90% have been on or within a length of the lead at the second call. Very few of them throw up a total clinker.

As contrast to this, about twice as many horses did the same kind of drop from one minute to post to post time. Of these, about 30% won and a little less than half were on or within within a length of the lead at the second call. More than a few finished far up the track, although the group as a whole showed a profit.

If there isn't cheating it's a very strong coincidence. It's too strong for me to ignore, which is why I've stopped playing anything under 5-1 in odds that doesn't look like a big overlay. Between that and the probable drugging and other cheating that's going on, it's no wonder that it's harder to get an edge today.

[hurrikane]

Well, I hope I don't sound too naive here..but if I believed there was all this cheating going on..I wouldn't play the game.

I do believe it happens but not every day.

If I truely believed the game was crooked then it would be awfully stupid of me to play.

Just a naive opinion of mine I suppose.

[TruForm]

Carl that statment Below is not true and it can never be true. if it was them two would be in Jail by now.



that a friend of hers used to sit with the pres of a New England track in his office and they were still punching out tickets as the horses rounded the first turn.

[TruForm]

Gramps:

All you just did is post Stuff that has been said for the Last 60 years. and guess what IT IS ALL CRAP.

*******

[MikeDee]

I don't know anything about the simulcast wagering system, but IMO the system would have to have a way for the track that is conducting the race to refuse any further wagers becasue the pool is closed. I can't image a system where the simulcast end points could keep the race pools open and pump in wagers after the host system closed the pool.

[TruForm]

MikeDee
Them that lose --say --man this Track/Casino is nothing but a cheat--them that win say-- man this place and this game is GREAT.

*******

[tomcat]

Mike is right. It's about equipment, technology and the desire to do anything.
One of the NTRA people who took my class a few times,tells me one the problems they have is dealing with tracks that refuse to modernize, improve or spend a nickle on anything. When NTRA suggests something new some of these tracks go beserk. Of course, they have had it their own way for so long.
Yes Mike, they are going to have to spend some money so we don't have to watch odds change while the horses are crossing the line. In the meantime, I would love to see an odds lock when the gates open.
One of the reasons I advise people to not bet place or show is because it is so hard to find overlays on win betting, let alone place or show.I realize a certain writer has a cow when I say that, but in this world of simulcasting it is not a level playing field. If we don't complain, you can be sure this won't get fixed by itself.

[Gramps]

Originally posted by *******
Gramps:

All you just did is post Stuff that has been said for the Last 60 years. and guess what IT IS ALL CRAP.

*******

Thanks for your polite reply. I didn't know that they had simulcast wagering for the past 60 years. Glad you could clear that up for me.

[ERNIE2]

Tomcat I know that falling odds is hard to take,a quick cure may be worse than the problem.
Remember back not so many years ago, all casinos(that I knew of) stopped taking bets when the first horse got to the gate and even today when betting from Santa Rosa some tracks close the betting before all are in the gate......this is good except once the betting is closed no refunds no changing bets,no matter what happens to how many or how long it takes to start the race..........I was present during a discussion at the Reno Hilton when the question of falling odds was ask of Steve Fierro their resident handicapper and odds maker A fellow who bets four tracks a day five days a week, his response was that he had noticed this often enough to start tracking it , after most of the summer (7-9 weeks) he came to belive it wasn't happening often enough to worry about......hates it when the odds drop but the number of times that the odds go up more than make up for it....you might notice it more if you have some hot shot bold ink type in the race that "just can't miss today" that gets hammered right at the bell his odds may/will fall but all others have to rise a % equal to his drop .

In the past posting dept. can it happen? ....yes.. how often, how wide spread is it ? I don't know. true story.....at (only one) a california track some years ago it came to my attention that one could punch the print ticket button after the horses were running ......sometimes as much as 8-10 seconds ,but sometimes only 3-4 seconds......this was a fluk......thought I had found a magic bullet...........didn't lose my butt......still have that big, as ever!!!!! but lost enough money that I went back to handicapping leaving the system loopholes for others to
explore.
Have to agree with Hurrikane here that when the day comes that I think I'm being cheated I should find a new game to play.......not saying that Its not happening.....just that my time is better spent handicapping the next race. :) ;) :)

[TruForm]

Sorry Gramps

I didn't mean to upset you--- But I just get tired of people knocking this Game.

Have a good Pal.

[Gramps]

My paternal grandfather and my father often told me that wherever there is money, there are people who are trying to get it dishonestly. That's not a novel concept, but it's one that's very true, and it would be especially true in any form of gambling.

If there is, indeed, a way to trick the computers and past-post the races, you can bet that there are people who have found it and are using it to try to get an edge. I've read news stories about a kid in North Dakota, a man in New York, and a man in Missouri (where, oddly, it isn't even legal to bet the races) who have either been caught at or were suspected of somehow managing to get bets down after the race had started...as much as a minute afterwards. I don't doubt it a bit.

It doesn't take a Joseph McGenius to know that if you can place a bet even 10 seconds after the race has gone off that you have one heck of an edge. Imagine being able to someow past-post any race you want for as long as 10 seconds after the race has started. Assuming that you can get a live (meaning delay of a couple of seconds or less) satellite feed (which would be reasonable, since anybody with the knowledge of getting past the lockout security could probably easilly manage to steal/decrypt an Autotote or other signal and/or subscribe legitimately to live satellite feeds), one would just have to sit and wait for the odds-on favorite to unseat his rider or stumble and lose several lengths at the start, then bet all the other horses. Or possibly an astute handicapper with a good knowledge of pace handicapping could wait and see how well his EV1 horse fares in the first few strides, and act accordingly.

I agree that it probably isn't happening often enough to cause one to flat out quit the game. Probably most horsemen are honest, hard-working types who love their jobs and love working with the animals in their charge. But it is naive to say that the business doesn't have unscrupulous people who are flat out cheating for personal gain. And these people are an added cost of doing business to the person who bets for profit. My point was that such dealings, added to all the other things going on and to the general increase of handicapping information available, all make it harder to gain an edge.

[George]

Fascinating thread. Think past-posting of current automated systems is very possible but also think it is not happening. Watching some tracks on TVG (Laurel mostly) there is an illusion as the race is ran. The odds shown on screen appear to change LOWERING on whichever horse makes a move toward the lead. Interesting to see the rapid switches in odds as horses move forward and fall back.

Am sure this is just an illusion caused by simulcast bettors late money with better estimates of who the front runners will be.

To past-post electronically would not be that difficult. All that’s needed is one good programmer at a feed site with an accomplice to set up an account (seed money) to bet from and place winnings into. There are many CGI scripts and/or API shells readily available over the internet which would enable access to the common pool. For that matter most TOTE systems run under UNIX servers. I personally can obtain the superuser (admin) password for any UNIX system in less than five minutes using any of 100 different “traps” or Trojans. Once I have that password can “update” anything on the server.

A well thought out server system will have several “firewalls” or “gateways” between the user and the server to prevent admin password traps. A programmer at a feed site will either already have the firewall passwords or can find them in a common control library.

I don’t think this is happening because if I could do that why would I attract attention by guessing the winner as the race progresses. Would merely wait until race hits the finish line and make my “adjustments” when nobody can see them.

Do think the industry needs to adopt a “bet lockout” at least two minutes before scheduled start of the race. That would remove all chance of past posting. Continuing the present system invites a problem…….when people can cheat…..sooner or later they will.

[hurrikane]

Nice post George. Thought I was talking to my son for a minute.

Frankly..past posting .IMHO..is nonsense...unless you are doing it as the horses are running for the wire. I don't think anyone knows, as the horses are running down the backstretch, who is going to win. All you really know is which horses haven't fallen down yet.

[tomcat]

I talked with someone yesterday who is in the industry and learned two new things I didn't know before.
1. The Clerks union allows 30 seconds for a clerk to correct a mistake ("I said the 5 horse not the 6") even after they go off. He said he didn't think this happens very often.
2. There in fact made be some past-posting. Gramps when you said this, I didn't think it true. But logistically, the cost of closing the loop-hole may not be worth the effort nor cost effective. Evidently, no one cares. How does that grab you?
The monies from the simulcasting site does not go straight to the park. It is collected in regional hubs, then sent in larger bites. Right now the Jockey Club is working on this problem, but as usual, working with some of these tracks is like talking to a wall. All long as they are making money, they don't want to be bothered

[Carl]

Hurrikane,

Al contarie.

To know what horse will have the lead down the backstretch is a huge advantage.

Quirin's famous studies 20 years back showed that IF you could have a bet on EVERY horse who had the lead at the quarter, you would get back over $3.00 for every $2.00 invested.

If was "the surprise speed" that made this a great bet. Some huge prices paid by horses that have the lead at the quarter that no one expects to. The ones the crowd says "what the heck is that horse doing....." types.

[Carl]

Tomcat,

"Thirty seconds to correct a mistake"?!

Now that's INTERESTING.

And opens up the door for some interesting "mistakes" IMO.......

Wonder how many "mistakes" come out of North Dakota, when the whale is at work.

And Gramps watching the tout board made an interesting observation on "90% of the late money being on a horse within a length at the first call" that no one has disputed yet.

Two plus two equals.....

And I agree with Gramps also, if there is a way to cheat, dishonest people will find it.

[MikeDee]

I think we are getting pretty far a field. If a group of individuals are going to conspire to get bets in after the post, then I would think that they would want a pretty big payoff for all this risk. Just having the lead down the back stretch wouldn't do for me. Better have him accross the finish line and it better be on a real big payoff. I just can't believe that if this is going on it wouldn't be found out. Just how many times can a single location continue this activity before someone figures out?

[Carl]

Mike,

I don't think anybody really cares.

Why should they?
1) The host tracks business is based on volume only. Who gets paid back the 82% that goes to the winning bettor(s) is immaterial to them. More volume=more takout for them and the state.
2) Let's say that Kentucky (or North Dakota) always sends in their pool money 30 seconds after the race starts. Why should the host track care? That's just the way business is done, the pool money comes in perhaps "after corrections are made".

And I hardly think this would be considered a "big deal" by anyone anyway. Even after it was found that the "North Dakota whale" could bet after the pools were closed to the rest of us, nobody considered it a biggie. So the guy "arbitraged" a little, the track didn't care, they still got theirs.

I don't know if "cheating by money coming in after the race is off" is happening or not. I care, you care, the government don't care. They (and the track's management) think horseplayers are just losing gamblers anyway, and they would I believe see it as "no harm/no foul" in the bigger sceme of things. And if it makes for a higher gross for them to cut the pie of, I would think they may even support it.

[Gramps]

Okay, let's look at this scenario:

Suppose that I'm considering a horse who always goes out to the lead. My horse is 3-1 odds. I know that this horse must have a clear lead of one length by the first call to have a good chance of winning. If it has a clear one length lead at the first fraction, it will win about half of the time. If there is a horse challenging it at the first fraction, it will be lucky to win about 15% of the time.

Now suppose that there are two other horses in the race. One horse has enough early speed to challenge my horse, but it doesn't always break well. The other horse breaks well, but doesn't always have enough early speed to challenge my horse.

If I KNEW my horse would have a clear length or more lead at the first call, I'd want to bet it, knowing that it would be great value: a 2.00 ROI (1.00 being break-even). If I KNEW it would be challenged, I'd hate to bet it, knowing the ROI would be under 0.50.

Now suppose that I can somehow past post the race by 30 seconds. I watch the race, and my horse opens a nice easy two length lead at the first call. I bet my $200. It might win, and it might not, but it certainly provides value. On the other hand, if another horse pushes my horse at the first call, I can now pass the race.

While my scenario was exaggerated somewhat for purposes of illustration, the general scenario, that of an unclear pace picture, is not an uncommon one. Such a situation may well come up an average of once or so a day per track. Multiply this by 12-30 tracks and you see how a person who is astute at pace handicapping could get a big edge.

[MikeDee]

Don't know how I ended up defending race track management, not my favorite group, but here goes.

Carl

You could make your arguement about every aspect of racing after all as you say the track gets it's take no matter who wins. So why would they care about drugs, cheating trainers, jockeys, clockers, mutual clerks....any of it.

The reason they care is first of all people just don't go t work every day with the idea that they don't give and damm and people all around them are breaking the law and they are just going to look the other way. This is a billion$ industry and the their livelyhood and the livelyhood of there co-workers, and tax revenues, depend on the public trust that this game is honest. Sure there will always be people tring to cheat, but their but managements number one job is to find them and giet rid of them.

The minute I really believe that they don't care and that cheating is rampant, then I'm outta here. Why would any one play a game they really believe is crooked, if they had an ounce of sense?

Gramps, For discussions sake lets assume that you have a crooked mutual clerk that will work with you to make wagers after the fact. I still don't believe it can' be done but I'll go along with it.

So you are at the track, first you have to position yourself in such a way that you can be at the right window in the race goes off. What if there is a line? You watch a monitor and if your horse is in position within this 30 secnd fix window you get your bet down. What about the people behind you. They won't get mad as you hold up the line doing this? What about the clerks on either side of your fixer or the manager that walks behind them, no one will get suspicous as you repeat this excerise four or five times a day, four or five days a week?

And there is no one in a backroom that can look at computer print outs with a time stamp that can see a series of wagers that are after post time? No one can run a program that prints an exception report of these events?

Maybe every now and then someone can trick the system, but I really believe anyone doing this on a systemmatic regular basis will get caught.

And besides no matter how much of andvange you think you have down the back stretch, the horse may still lose you can still have a bad day a bad week, would your mutual clerk risk losing his job, going to jail on anything less then a sure thing?

[Gramps]

The problem isn't complicity by a crooked mutuel clerk. The actual problem lies in a glitch, flaw, or lack of proper security in the programming that is allowing one of two things:

1) A bettor to use a tote machine/web-bet site, etc., to past post the races to some degree, without exploiting the glitch directly---in other words, it simply exists for anybody to use, perhaps because the machine itself is out of sync with the correct time or for some other reason.

2) A hacker to somehow fool the computers into thinking the bets are coming in legally when, in fact, they're coming in a long time after the race has been sent off.

In either case, it's probably one person doing the work, with no help from the tracks, simulcast outlets, hubs or any of their employees. But no matter how it's happening, it has to be fixed.

And you can bet that the tracks care. Their credulity will be hurt if it's found out that people are past posting the races, even if they aren't directly aiding these people. Once this is found out, the public loses some of its trust in the tracks and revenues fall.

The problem is that in the Thorobred industry, innovation, change, and improvement move at the speed of......well, of an out of shape $2,500 claimer. Things happen slowly. So nothing is done about the problem until the dung hits the fan.

[hurrikane]

I don't want to beat a dead horse here (sorry for the pun).

The particular race Tomcat refered to..the 13th Nov...r5. The mutual pool in that race..WPS..was $133,000.00. Even if only half was in the win pool...can you guess how much would have to be bet to drop the odds 4 points? I'm not going to take the time to figure it out..maybe someone else will. It is tremendous. I think if someone made a past post bet of that size..someone is going to notice. Which means that there must be hundreds of people doing it and that I find unbelievable.

Do I think past posting "never" happens. No..I'm sure somewhere somehow it does occasionally. But I don't believe anyone is going to past post enough to effect the odds that much in the larger pools or the alarms will go off. If they do it in the smaller pools you would see a greater drop and they wouldn't get thier odds.

I think we are swinging at flys with a baseball bat here. The problem is in the way simulcast money is handled and the tracks need to address the problem.

[Swope]

Big problem is: this controversey driving players from the game and it keeps new players out because they fear cheating. This "odds drop" thing happens every tk every day and I
hear grumbling about it all day long at racebook I attend. I know players who have quit.

[tbrown]

I gotta agree with Swope - the perception of the game is all that counts. Whether or not everything going on is legal or not, if people believe it is cheating, they will go away. I think all betting should be stopped as the first horse is ready to load. All pools should be totalled before the horses start the race. We put a man on the moon and brought him back. We can do this. The game has to have the illusion of honesty (did I say that???~G~)

[Carl]

"First horse in the gate cuts the pool and gives the illusion of honesty" would do it for me too Tom.

Won't happen though.

Why not?

Things that make ME go humm...........

[Don H]

Just watching mnr 3d race and they were holding payoffs up waiting for all tracks to send in their simulcast monies. The 3 won the race and he was 7-1 after the race and after the simo monies came in he paid 12.60.

This appears to be why odds keep changing as the race is running.

Sometimes there's a simple answer

Don

[ERNIE2]

I belive that Its easier than anything to do with betting.......as the horses run around the track some guy is sitting somewhere typing in who's 1-2-3 "AND" that horses odds......Now my observation is that this guy is wrong about who's on first most of the time and he is most likely wrong about what the proper odds are.........the odds posted on the screen where the horses are running is all smoke-n-mirrors ...It's the odds on the mutual screen that counts......I do plan to watch the mutual pools more in the future to see if they move as often and as much as the odds on the screen where the race is shown.

Hurrikane: you need to know the money in the win pool only (you said $133 k in W-P-S pool)
the differance between 9/2 ( 18% of the pool) and 5/2 (28%) on a total of $133 k is only 10% or $ 13,300

Stop the betting at any time other than when the gates open and it's no longer par mutual wagering/betting,It becomes a booked or house backed bet.........or the new rule "should" be/state "we will start "no" race until all the money is posted on the home tracks tote board"
what good will that do ? the better can't change his bet in any way...he still has to take the offical posted odds.....only 5-7 minutes later.
The worst racing luck that I can imagine is watching the horses load and my horse takes a back flip or is between two horses that don't want to load.......the betting is off and I can't do anything about any ticket I have in my hand............where as now at most tracks I can and do cancel all bets involving a long gate load. :) :) ;)