Drifters

[arw629]

Something I've been thinking about lately ....favorites that drift late in the betting seem to rarely win...has anyone tracked this statistically? People like to complain when they bet a horse at 5-2 with 1 mtp and they win at 6-5 but how often do horses win that drift the other way? For example ...i can't remember the race but it was at Hawthorne saturday and the 10 was favored the entire time between 3-2 and 9-5 all the way to post time and when the gates opened the horse was 5-2 and I think ran 4th...how many times do you see a 3-5 fav drift to 6-5 or so and actually win?

I will say this though. Sometimes at mountaineer I'll see a fav I like at 1-5 @ post time and I'll make a bet bc for some reason when the gates open the odds magically read 4-5 or even money and win like a 1-5 shot....i feel smart when I make these bets at the mountain but every other track it feels like an auto loser. ..so enough of me rambling does anyone track this?

[Jeff P]

...I will say this though. Sometimes at mountaineer I'll see a fav I like at 1-5 @ post time and I'll make a bet bc for some reason when the gates open the odds magically read 4-5 or even money and win like a 1-5 shot...

This pattern has been going on for a few years now. (If you do a search for the phrase "mad bomber" you can probably find some old threads about this.)

I first noticed it at Mountaineer. But now it has spread to other tracks as well.

The pattern goes something like this:

Before the current race becomes official - a large player (or players) bets several thousand dollars to win on a single horse in the next race.

As soon as the current race becomes official - and the tote refreshes to display the odds for the new upcoming race:

The first flash of betting reveals that several thousand dollars has been bet on a single horse to win - and its odds are listed at 1 to 9.

A look at the win pool totals at the first flash of betting also reveals that the normally expected amount of money has been bet on each of the other horses to win.

At this point the odds are unnaturally skewed... something like 1 to 9 on the favorite... 30 to 1 on the second choice... 40 to 1 on the third choice... and 50 to 1 or higher on each of the others.

In my opinion:

The player (or players) responsible for the large opening bet are attempting to intimidate the other bettors and manipulate the pool.

Their large bet is designed to depress the odds on the horse they are backing - and purposely make it a very unattractive proposition to the other bettors (from a value standpoint) for much of the betting.

At the same time, the odds of all the other horses have been artificially inflated - and purposely made to "appear" much more attractive (from a value perspective) for much of the betting.

But notice that I used the word "appear."

Because right at the end, as the horses are facing up to the gate, I am convinced the player (or players) who made the large opening bet in the first place are about to make a "HOW MUCH TO CANCEL" decision based on the following:

a. Their estimate for total dollars likely to be wagered by the other players into the win pool.

b. Their estimate for final odds and total return on their horse if they decide to let their initial win bet stay in the pool as is.

c. Their estimate (using kelly criterion based on estimated odds and estimated edge) for how much of their initial win bet they should CANCEL in order to maximize their total return should their horse win.

I am convinced they are cancelling a significant portion of their initial win bet just before the race goes off (or possibly shortly after) in order to maximize their total return.

In my opinion THAT is why you see the odds jump from say 1 to 5 standing in the gate to say 4 to 5 as the horse makes the winning move in the stretch.

In my opinion:

There's nothing wrong with making a large opening bet and letting it stand.

There's also nothing wrong with making large bets throughout the course of wagering.

But in my opinion the CANCELLING of large bets is being abused and racing commissioners need to put a stop to it.




-jp

.

[Robert Fischer]

The exception to the rule is legitimately cold favorite. One who appears to be obviously dominant on paper (about even money) and instead is around 2-1 odds, for most of the betting, and then drifts down a bit to 8-5/9-5 at post time.

[MonmouthParkJoe]

This is right in my wheel house. My thesis work is on using merged pool wagering to increase liquidity/churn and stabilize volatility.

If anyone has any studies they have done and would like to share some information with me, I would be forever in your debt and include the study (and give credit where credit is due), once it is published.

[SG4]

Something I've been thinking about lately ....favorites that drift late in the betting seem to rarely win...has anyone tracked this statistically? People like to complain when they bet a horse at 5-2 with 1 mtp and they win at 6-5 but how often do horses win that drift the other way? For example ...i can't remember the race but it was at Hawthorne saturday and the 10 was favored the entire time between 3-2 and 9-5 all the way to post time and when the gates opened the horse was 5-2 and I think ran 4th...how many times do you see a 3-5 fav drift to 6-5 or so and actually win?

I will say this though. Sometimes at mountaineer I'll see a fav I like at 1-5 @ post time and I'll make a bet bc for some reason when the gates open the odds magically read 4-5 or even money and win like a 1-5 shot....i feel smart when I make these bets at the mountain but every other track it feels like an auto loser. ..so enough of me rambling does anyone track this?

Honestly when we're talking about tracks like Mountaineer & lower liquidity places it doesn't take much to make an odds jump in either direction, so I think it's hard to really get worked up about these things. Now when you see this sort of late action at the major tracks, that's something which I think could be worth following if you wanted to do some real tracking of results. Either way, what would be the theory that you're trying to prove? Essentially just tracking the results of deep pocketed-procrastinators? Can't really benefit since you never know the real final betting til the latch has been sprung anyway.

People remember most what they want to see, which I think usually concerns large downward odds shifts very late in the betting, followed by a victory, cause it creates suspicion. I think if real data was recorded there would be a wide variety of results with no clear pattern.

[JohnGalt1]

I think it was Ernie Dahlman who said, when interviewed about $2k win bets, when did he place them. Did he wait until before post, or layer his bets in.

If he waited, the odds had no time to recover.

He said he placed his bet early, so the handicapper in the saddling ring would notice the 1-5 or 1-9 horse, and would tout another horse for value, even if he liked the favorite. Thus the crowd would bet other horses and Ernie would get 4-5 or 7-5.

[arw629]

Race 4 tonight at Delta...I didn't look at the pps but with 2 Mins to post the :2: was 1-9 with about 5200 in the win pool...goes off at even money and is much the best rallying for the win

[burnsy]

This is right in my wheel house. My thesis work is on using merged pool wagering to increase liquidity/churn and stabilize volatility.

If anyone has any studies they have done and would like to share some information with me, I would be forever in your debt and include the study (and give credit where credit is due), once it is published.

I' m getting old so when my friends and I looked at this the pools were not even merged all the time. On some days you could get different prices depending where or who you bet with. On big days there were some crazy differences sometimes.

But one thing we consistently found was that odds that drift either way to 4/5 were usually a bad bet. Back then this pertained to NYRA tracks because that's what we bet. We could not figure out why or correlate it but it was uncanny how bad 4/5's did. I wonder if its still true.

[MonmouthParkJoe]

I' m getting old so when my friends and I looked at this the pools were not even merged all the time. On some days you could get different prices depending where or who you bet with. On big days there were some crazy differences sometimes.

But one thing we consistently found was that odds that drift either way to 4/5 were usually a bad bet. Back then this pertained to NYRA tracks because that's what we bet. We could not figure out why or correlate it but it was uncanny how bad 4/5's did. I wonder if its still true.


I should have clarified. My work is being done on single pool merging, like merging the win and exacta pool to increase liquidity and stabilize the volatility in the win pool. Basically using some data to show actual payoffs that day versus what the payoffs would have been if the two pools were merged. Still trying to figure out what effect the CRWs would have

[Cholly]

I think it was Ernie Dahlman who said, when interviewed about $2k win bets, when did he place them. Did he wait until before post, or layer his bets in.

If he waited, the odds had no time to recover.

He said he placed his bet early, so the handicapper in the saddling ring would notice the 1-5 or 1-9 horse, and would tout another horse for value, even if he liked the favorite. Thus the crowd would bet other horses and Ernie would get 4-5 or 7-5.

In the quote I read, he said he bet early enough to keep the computerized wagering syndicates from landing on the horses he wanted to bet.

[arw629]

Something I've been thinking about lately ....favorites that drift late in the betting seem to rarely win...has anyone tracked this statistically? People like to complain when they bet a horse at 5-2 with 1 mtp and they win at 6-5 but how often do horses win that drift the other way? For example ...i can't remember the race but it was at Hawthorne saturday and the 10 was favored the entire time between 3-2 and 9-5 all the way to post time and when the gates opened the horse was 5-2 and I think ran 4th...how many times do you see a 3-5 fav drift to 6-5 or so and actually win?

I will say this though. Sometimes at mountaineer I'll see a fav I like at 1-5 @ post time and I'll make a bet bc for some reason when the gates open the odds magically read 4-5 or even money and win like a 1-5 shot....i feel smart when I make these bets at the mountain but every other track it feels like an auto loser. ..so enough of me rambling does anyone track this?

With 1 min to post last night in race 8 at mnr I placed $100 to win on Judge Carr at 1-5 and he won the race with ease and paid 4.00.

[EasyGoer89]

I love when bettors do this and I know it's a fake out bet, I just pile my money onto the 'unattractive' price I'm onto their games! The key is to be really good at knowing what the price is supposed to be, you can usually estimate this by looking at pick 3, 4 prices and exactas.

[sour grapes]

I love when bettors do this and I know it's a fake out bet, I just pile my money onto the 'unattractive' price I'm onto their games! The key is to be really good at knowing what the price is supposed to be, you can usually estimate this by looking at pick 3, 4 prices and exactas.

your the best

[AltonKelsey]

With 1 min to post last night in race 8 at mnr I placed $100 to win on Judge Carr at 1-5 and he won the race with ease and paid 4.00.


Indeed. But you also risked taking 1 or 2/5 . There was no way to know that it would blow out like that, pure luck in that case. And it was a lot lower in the exotics so that excuse is void.

[SuperPickle]

Two places the drift is insane is The Mountain and Will Rodgers.

Opening week a Will Rodgers there was a horse who was 1-5 as they started the load and the second choice was about 3-1. During the load they almost flipped. The 1-5 drifted to 6-5 and the 3-1 got hit to something like even, 4-5.

The horse that got hit late won wire-to-wire.

[SuperPickle]

Something I've been thinking about lately ....favorites that drift late in the betting seem to rarely win...has anyone tracked this statistically? People like to complain when they bet a horse at 5-2 with 1 mtp and they win at 6-5 but how often do horses win that drift the other way? For example ...i can't remember the race but it was at Hawthorne saturday and the 10 was favored the entire time between 3-2 and 9-5 all the way to post time and when the gates opened the horse was 5-2 and I think ran 4th...how many times do you see a 3-5 fav drift to 6-5 or so and actually win?

I will say this though. Sometimes at mountaineer I'll see a fav I like at 1-5 @ post time and I'll make a bet bc for some reason when the gates open the odds magically read 4-5 or even money and win like a 1-5 shot....i feel smart when I make these bets at the mountain but every other track it feels like an auto loser. ..so enough of me rambling does anyone track this?

So it happened today in the 3rd race at Parx. Fts in mcl. 6-1 ML. Opened 1-5. 1-2 with 5 min to post. 6-5 at the gate. 5-2 off odds. Broke on top and won by 10 wire-to-wire.

They do sometimes win.

[MonmouthParkJoe]

There is a great article called "Late Money and Betting Market Efficiency" from Gramm, McKinney, and Parker. If you google it you will be able to find it and read the whole document. Provides some insight into this topic.

[ReplayRandall]

There is a great article called "Late Money and Betting Market Efficiency" from Gramm, McKinney, and Parker. If you google it you will be able to find it and read the whole document. Provides some insight into this topic.
Here you go, talking about racing markets down under, circa 2006:

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/econ/upload/ecu1310.pdf

[MonmouthParkJoe]

Here you go, talking about racing markets down under, circa 2006:

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/econ/upload/ecu1310.pdf


Do you think some of this applies in the US? I do.

[arw629]

Indeed. But you also risked taking 1 or 2/5 . There was no way to know that it would blow out like that, pure luck in that case. And it was a lot lower in the exotics so that excuse is void.

I don't do it everytime but I was okay taking 1-5 on Judge Carr if I was wrong.

[PICSIX]

So it happened today in the 3rd race at Parx. Fts in mcl. 6-1 ML. Opened 1-5. 1-2 with 5 min to post. 6-5 at the gate. 5-2 off odds. Broke on top and won by 10 wire-to-wire.

They do sometimes win.
I used this horse as my top pick in tournament play because all the other entries had already proven they couldn't run anywhere near par.

[PICSIX]

Keep in mind, if this occurs in claiming races, it might be owner money trying to entice a claim.

[classhandicapper]

But in my opinion the CANCELLING of large bets is being abused and racing commissioners need to put a stop to it.


I believe some tracks/OTBs have rules about late cancels. I know for a fact that NYC OTB had rules like that governing large exotic wagers. Clerks were not permitted to cancel large exotic wagers without management approval. So you could never pull a move like that very late in the wagering. You'd be risking the manager either saying "no" or not even being available at that moment. I can't recall if it applied to very large win bets, but I'm going to guess that most clerks would automatically seek management approval on a multi thousand dollar wager. All that said, I don't disagree. Those rules were in place for NYC OTB specifically to avoid the kind of manipulation you are talking about. So it does happen.

[MonmouthParkJoe]

I believe some tracks/OTBs have rules about late cancels. I know for a fact that NYC OTB had rules like that governing large exotic wagers. Clerks were not permitted to cancel large exotic wagers without management approval. So you could never pull a move like that very late in the wagering. You'd be risking the manager either saying "no" or not even being available at that moment. I can't recall if it applied to very large win bets, but I'm going to guess that most clerks would automatically seek management approval on a multi thousand dollar wager. All that said, I don't disagree. Those rules were in place for NYC OTB specifically to avoid the kind of manipulation you are talking about. So it does happen.

I was at Yonkers maybe 5 years back. Wanted to cancel a $100 win bet since the horse was actually breaking during warm ups. Teller wouldnt cancel the bet until she had a supervisor approve it. This went on for five minutes, race went off and horse broke as soon as the gates opened. Last time I ever visited or bet on Yonkers.