2 Things Aussie Totes Do Right

[Some_One]

Just back from Flemington after watching BC's substandard effort (pushed out to be that field? Ignore the time, track was very fast, hasn't rained here in Melbourne for a month), and noticed two things right away playing on the tote that we need in North America.

1) Two Minute Cancellation Rule - Simply put, a ticket can only be cancelled in the two minutes after it is purchased. This would stop all this BS madbomber action we see at MNR plus all other last minute pool manipulation.

2) Automatic Flexi-betting - On the self-service machines, when I first started putting in my quinellas and trifectas, I hit the $1 dollar button, but what happened was the machine took that as I wanted to spend $1 dollar total (not $1 per combo), and it would just calculate how much each combo was worth, there seemed to be no min as I was able to do 25 cent tri's, didn't go below that.

Some other things - it was cool to see the lineup of bookmakers with their boards up taking bets, however I really noticed that in the end, most of the time the tote is the better deal, plus most of these bookies had a laptop setup with the Betfair markets opened up to (IMO) track the markets and to layoff action.

[Buchan]

Just back from Flemington after watching BC's substandard effort (pushed out to be that field? Ignore the time, track was very fast, hasn't rained here in Melbourne for a month).



the field may have been substandard but her run was just fine.
perhaps you are just too hard a taskmaster.
without adjusting for race class or pace, then...........

dist. time standard speed
1100 63.24 60.79 61.26
1400 82.47 79.76 67.14
1400 82.49 79.76 66.91
2000 121.07 117.95 74.23
1400 82.59 79.76 65.73
1400 82.6 79.76 65.62
1000 55.42 54.9 90.62
1200 68.94 66.71 67.65
1700 100.83 98.77 79.57

......standards may be slightly dated, but still she ran about 11metres per 1000m faster than any other race today.

oh, and nothing would be capable of running my standards, but that is irrelevant, it's just how i do things.

[levinmpa]

I really miss seeing the Aussie racing on HRTV or TVG. It used be on nightly, but they no longer carry it.

One thing I would like to see on the American tote board is doing away with odds displayed in fractions, as in 7/5 or 9/2. I understand they only want to show odds in 2 digits on the tote board. I'm fine with 2 digits, but I wish they would use decimals up to the number 10. 8/5 can mean 1.6 to 1 or 1.7 to 1, so why not just show 1.6 or 1.7 on the tote board. 5/2 can mean, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 or 2.9 to 1. In 2013, there is no reason why these odds should not be expressed in a 2 digit decimal. I want to know if the 6/1 I'm seeing on the toteboard is 6.0 or 6.9 to 1, without having to break out a calculator. Seems like a no brainer to me. Australian racing always expresses their odds in decimals, which I really like.

And while I'm on a rant, can we please fix the breakage issue. Breaking to a dime is just flat out stealing money from the players. A big show bettor gets robbed when a show price that should pay $2.39 gets cut down to $2.20. If I wager $1000 to show in this case, I should get $1195, but with the breakage, I would lose almost half my profit and would only get $1100. I can live with nickel breakage, even though in this technology age, it's unnecessary. If a track can't survive without breaking to a dime, they shouldn't be in business. To keep money that belongs to the players because it's "inconvenient" for the tellers to pay the change, is just outright stealing. I'm surprised there hasn't been some sort of class action lawsuit regarding the practice of breaking to a dime or breaking at all. If I had the time or energy, I would pursue this.