My $95 Horse and PTC

[betovernetcapper]

I had to get a haircut today and I still wanted to bet a little at ARP. I set up bets in all 10 races to be placed at 30 seconds to post. I got home and checked my bets to discover my bets on races 1 to 4 had been entered and I had a .85 loss. My bet on #6 in the 5th had been rejected-not a big deal but it won and paid $95.40.
Stuff happens. If this had been any other ADW, I would call and after about an hour or so of witty urban chatter, I'd be looking for an AK47 and the nearest clock tower. I called Ian and within a minute, he had corrected the problem and credited my account with $95.40.

Best ADW EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

[prospector]

the customer service has been exceptional...does he ever sleep?

[BillW]

the customer service has been exceptional...does he ever sleep?

Agree! I funded my account with a check (I despise paying bank fees). Ian spotted me enough to play while waiting for my check to clear. :ThmbUp: (BTW, the check did clear :lol: )

[Premier Turf Club]

the customer service has been exceptional...does he ever sleep?

Not enough.


Thanks for the kind words. I try to treat customers the way that I would want to be treated as a horseplayer. Not that I've ever been treated that way.:lol:

[trying2win]

I agree with all the accolades about Ian and PTC in this thread. They go the extra mile for the customer. That is something a lot of ADWS don't do. I've seen by example, how Ian and the staff at PTC understand the wise words in the quote listed at the bottom of this post.

By the way, congratulations BETOVERNETCAPPER on that $95.40 winner.


T2W

"The real boss is the customer. He pays for your salary and everything you own. If you don't please him or her, they will take their business elsewhere". (A quote on customer service)
--Earl Nightingale

[boomman]

I had to get a haircut today and I still wanted to bet a little at ARP. I set up bets in all 10 races to be placed at 30 seconds to post. I got home and checked my bets to discover my bets on races 1 to 4 had been entered and I had a .85 loss. My bet on #6 in the 5th had been rejected-not a big deal but it won and paid $95.40.
Stuff happens. If this had been any other ADW, I would call and after about an hour or so of witty urban chatter, I'd be looking for an AK47 and the nearest clock tower. I called Ian and within a minute, he had corrected the problem and credited my account with $95.40.

Best ADW EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

bet: Agreed, as their customer service is unparalleled in the business, and hopefully we can get the word out to horseplayers to support Ian and his team by demanding that tracks and organizations such as The TOC that refuse to negotiate with PTC be held accountable! I can promise you guys, that an ADW that is operated "by horseplayers for horseplayers" (which this truly is) may not come along again in our lifetime, and we have a duty to do everything we can to make our voices heard so that we will have a site that we trust that will have the opportunity to carry EVERY signal for years to come!!

Boomer

[trying2win]

bet: Agreed, as their customer service is unparalleled in the business, and hopefully we can get the word out to horseplayers to support Ian and his team by demanding that tracks and organizations such as The TOC that refuse to negotiate with PTC be held accountable! I can promise you guys, that an ADW that is operated "by horseplayers for horseplayers" (which this truly is) may not come along again in our lifetime, and we have a duty to do everything we can to make our voices heard so that we will have a site that we trust that will have the opportunity to carry EVERY signal for years to come!!

Boomer

Boomer,

You're right on the money in my opinion! I've noticed over the years here at PACE ADVANTAGE, that some members and lurkers are 'milquetoasts'. That is, they would rather just complain here at the PACE ADVANTAGE site about the bad service or skimpy 'rewards' they get at some racetracks or ADWS. Yet...they don't want to complain to the General Manager at the track or ADW about shoddy treatment via emails or phone calls. I'm guessing these timid or apathetic bettors, would just rather follow the path of least resistance by thinking along the lines of...

"Well...that's the way the racetrack or my ADW does business, so I guess I'll 'have to' accept it. I suppose I should be grateful they are offering me a place to make my bets, so I better not criticize them about lousy service, or minimal 'rewards' for my business. Plus, my local racetrack gave me a free coffee mug and baseball cap on a special promotion day recently. After all, I have no say or control of managements' policies at these places".

--To which I say...NONSENSE! on that kind of thinking.

--If you want to see PTC flourish now and in the future, please give them your support. If you don't like getting small or no rebates from your current ADW, please consider applying for an account at PTC.

--It's my hope that other PTC members will not drift into apathy, but will aid in PTC'S attempt to gain market access to tracks like Del Mar. PTC members, by taking ACTION via sending emails to the management at Del Mar and T.O.C...you can make an impact! The Del Mar and T.O.C. contact email links can be found at their respective websites at www.dmtc.com and www.toconline.com . LET YOUR VOICE AS A HORSEPLAYER BE HEARD!

Thank you,

T2W

[jma]

I also applaud such great customer service. This is the kind of thing we need in the industry. Of course I live in NJ and PTC isn't an option for me (sigh), but I'm glad they're out there. :ThmbUp:

[facorsig]

Like others, I had recent positive experience with PTC customer service taking action.

Customer service in some companies has become an analog for Human Resources (i.e. protecting the company), but the PTC experience has been uniquely positive.

Fred

[pic6vic]

We need to figure a way for those states to let us use PTC. If not how about a work around. I have relatives in NJ,CT,NC and a friend in NV. I live in CA.

I could open an account in any of their names and play, but none of these states can open an account with PTC due to restrictions

[GoBabyGo]

maybe couto wants you to play in mexico. nys report says tracks all have a special close relationship with caliente.

[trigger]

I had to get a haircut today and I still wanted to bet a little at ARP. I set up bets in all 10 races to be placed at 30 seconds to post. I got home and checked my bets to discover my bets on races 1 to 4 had been entered and I had a .85 loss. My bet on #6 in the 5th had been rejected-not a big deal but it won and paid $95.40.
Stuff happens. If this had been any other ADW, I would call and after about an hour or so of witty urban chatter, I'd be looking for an AK47 and the nearest clock tower. I called Ian and within a minute, he had corrected the problem and credited my account with $95.40.

Best ADW EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)


It would help before I join in with the accolades to PTC's customer service if you would please explain in a little more detail how your $2 bet that won paying $95.40 got screwed up in the first place and do you think you would have been treated the same way if you bet $100 to win on this horse.
Also, perhaps PTC could elaborate on the what their current minimum wagering level is to earn a rebate....if I recall correctly they were initially looking for a handle of several thousand a month in order for an individual bettor to be considered eligible for rebates. Thanks

[chrisl]

Is this something set up at PTC, to place your bets by a pre post time set up.Or is this some software,please more info.. Thank You Chrisl

[Premier Turf Club]

Is this something set up at PTC, to place your bets by a pre post time set up.Or is this some software,please more info.. Thank You Chrisl

It is something we have built into the site. We will be adding a conditional wagering queue to the site next week. Choose your horse or horses (you can actually set minimums for exactas, doubles and quinellas too) set a minimum price, and let the software make the wagers for you. I tested it for the first time today and it seemed fine. Another few days of testing and we'll be ready to publish it.:)

[betovernetcapper]

Trigger,
I had bet $5 win bets on 8 races to be placed .30 before post. In the fifth, I had bet the 6&7 to win and also in a partial back wheel. The #7 was a late scratch and the bet didn't go through. It was a tiny software glitch which they have since corrected.
I expect they would have done the right thing no matter what the amount. :)

[finfan]

We will be adding a conditional wagering queue to the site next week. Choose your horse or horses (you can actually set minimums for exactas, doubles and quinellas too) set a minimum price, and let the software make the wagers for you.

Will you be able to set different minimums in the queue based on field size?

[Premier Turf Club]

It would help before I join in with the accolades to PTC's customer service if you would please explain in a little more detail how your $2 bet that won paying $95.40 got screwed up in the first place and do you think you would have been treated the same way if you bet $100 to win on this horse.
Also, perhaps PTC could elaborate on the what their current minimum wagering level is to earn a rebate....if I recall correctly they were initially looking for a handle of several thousand a month in order for an individual bettor to be considered eligible for rebates. Thanks

I have no problem explaining EXACTLY what happened.

The way tote code is written (not our code but the Amtote code, actually UTote and Sci Games for that matter too) if you try to put in a wager that has even one scratched horse it gets rejected. If you went to a teller window and called out a 1-2-3-4-5 exacta box and the 5 is scratched, you would NOT get a ticket with 1-2-3-4, the whole bet would get kicked back. Now with a teller, they would make the edit and punch out a 1-2-3-4. What BetOver' did was to put a $2 (6,7) win partwheel into the queue earlier on in the day. What neither he nor I knew (he wasn't watching the races at the time and I don't follow Arapahoe) is that the 7 had scratched earlier on in the day. When the bets got sent from the queue at 1MTP, it had the scratched runner in it. Amtote sent back an automated message "Wager Invalid- Contains a Scratched Runner." So both bets get rejected. I know what people are thinking, doesn't it make sense for it to accept the bets that are still valid? Of course it does, but tote code and tote hardware is nearly 15 years old. Literally. You end up with the equivalent of those old "does not compute" computer error messages. That's why it was such a pain in the ass to build our software and one reason why most everyone else's is so lacking in features. First we had to sketch out what we wanted our software to do, and then we had to figure out a way around the limitations of the 1990's code on the other end.

Why haven't I heard that with any other ADW you might ask? Simple, none of them have unattended betting queues. With other ADWs (Youbet, Phonebet come to mind) you have to hit submit yourself. That's why you can't load up bets earlier in the day. Of course if there's a scratch in there, you fix it yourself before submitting. Getting around what happened to Betover' is pretty easy, though neither he nor I thought about it at the time; submit each bet individually, $2 win 6 and $2 win 7. In that case, the bet on the 6 goes in, and the one on the 7 gets rejected. This is the first time it has ever happened to one of our customers. Going forward we are telling people to queue the wagers individually.

Anyone who knows me know I haven't been afraid to explain the inner working in the most excruciating detail, and take the hit if we have a bug in our code. In this case though, the error had nothing to do with what we wrote, it's an Amtote issue. Nevertheless, it certainly wasn't Betover's fault and we had no problem paying him.

As far as minimums, etc. it's better to PM me if anyone is interested.

[Premier Turf Club]

I'm not sure I follow the question. If your asking can I set the minimum price on the 1 horse at 5-1 but if there are 2 scratched bring it down to 4-1, the answer is no. There are ways to do something like that in a very high end betting engine we finishing up now (it will be up about August 1). That one requires you to input an odd line for the race and will make wagers based upon odds you set for each contender.

Later on today I'll put up a screen shot from the conditional betting queue so people can see what it looks like. There isn't any wager information yet because it's 8 in the morning here and the tote doesn't open until 10-10:30.

[finfan]

If your asking can I set the minimum price on the 1 horse at 5-1 but if there are 2 scratched bring it down to 4-1, the answer is no.

Yes I was wondering if I could set different minimums based on if there were late scratches.

[Premier Turf Club]

I've taken a screen shot of our conditional wagering queue. It's not on our production site right now, but it should be by early next week. We really think it will change the way the game is played.

I'd be happy to answer any questions and will have more to say when we publish it.

[njcurveball]

There are ways to do something like that in a very high end betting engine we finishing up now (it will be up about August 1). That one requires you to input an odd line for the race and will make wagers based upon odds you set for each contender.



Well this is the genesis of some wild happenings down the line. If there are a number of people doing this, then it will be easy for weird things to happen.

One case that comes to mind would be a "whale" betting hard on a longshot triggering the prices on other horses to go up and the automatic betting scenarios to trigger.

Then they simply cancel the big bet and look for the real overlays.

I think Wall Street has set some limitations in place for automatic buying and selling, but unlike racing, once you buy at $20 you are done.

I guess we will be hearing about this stuff in a few years.

[cj]

This is a great development.

I don't think it will be very easy to cancel wagers placed online this way.

[BillW]

NJ,

This logic is occurring within the PTC web interface. It is not placing and removing money from the pool. PTC simply holds wagers in their queue until the specified conditions are met (MTP, min odds etc.) then moves them into the pools (just as if you were sitting at your computer and clicked "submit" at a time that met our criteria) otherwise the wager dies in the queue and never gets placed. The outside world doesn't see any of this.

[Premier Turf Club]

NJ,

This logic is occurring within the PTC web interface. It is not placing and removing money from the pool. PTC simply holds wagers in their queue until the specified conditions are met (MTP, min odds etc.) then moves them into the pools (just as if you were sitting at your computer and clicked "submit" at a time that met our criteria) otherwise the wager dies in the queue and never gets placed. The outside world doesn't see any of this.

Very well explained Bill. Like a man who has been around software once or twice before.;)

Yes, NJ' the bets are not placed and then cancelled, they just sit in a queue in a private url on our server. There isn't any way anyone from the outside can see your wagers, and since they are placed at 1 MTP you really wouldn't be able to cancel them and play something else anyway.

Obviously, I am not an unbiased observer but I don't see anything but positives in this feature from a player's standpoint.

[chrisl]

This is great. The only problem is, my hard core database tracks, are Emerald Downs, and Hollywood Park, get one of these tracks, and I have found a new home. Future looks very good

[njcurveball]

PTC simply holds wagers in their queue until the specified conditions are met (MTP, min odds etc.) then moves them into the pools (just as if you were sitting at your computer and clicked "submit" at a time that met our criteria) otherwise the wager dies in the queue and never gets placed. The outside world doesn't see any of this.

Bill,

Just saw this explanation and it is basically the way I thought the bets were made. My curiousity is what happens when 4 or 5 ADWs ALL have bets waiting? Are you doing this now? How is it working?

Lets say Youbet goes in first and pushes the odds higher on your horse, then PTC goes in and it goes lower pushing another contender higher so TVG bets go in on that until finally the Whale bets come in with seconds left toppling the entire house of cards and theoretically cancelling all of the overlays.

I view this as very similar to place and show betting these days compared to the early and mid 80s when you go bet a "Dr Z" overlay at 2 minutes and still get a good price at the windows.

I found with my own place and show betting, sometime in the late 80s, the pendulum started to swing on these horses and by the early 90s, the pools were "back filling" so much the underlays at 2 minutes often between better bets.

If you can get in on this at the start, then it is a good thing. Hopefully PTC will stay ahead of the curve for at least a few years, maybe even a decade?

Ian, Is there any premium you can pay to have your wagers go in last? Do you think it is truly first come, first serve in the que? I do not find my on-line wagers going in right away at 4NJBETS. Sometimes they do not show until the 5 minute mark on a race I advance bet.

thanks for any info,
Jim

[Premier Turf Club]

Bill,

Just saw this explanation and it is basically the way I thought the bets were made. My curiousity is what happens when 4 or 5 ADWs ALL have bets waiting? Are you doing this now? How is it working?

Ian, Is there any premium you can pay to have your wagers go in last? Do you think it is truly first come, first serve in the que? I do not find my on-line wagers going in right away at 4NJBETS. Sometimes they do not show until the 5 minute mark on a race I advance bet.

thanks for any info,
Jim

There is no way we can have any individual or even all of PTC's queued wagers go in last. Pratcially speaking I don't see this as a big issue for a couple of reasons.

1) People won't necessarily be betting on the same horse (queue or late money) so it isn't one single animal that's going to get bet down.

2) Even if all ADW's transmitted the wagers at the exact same times they won't get into the respective tote and/or into the pools at precisely the same time. XpressBet sends their wagers from PA into the Amtote Hunt Valley hub. PTC from Fargo to Amtote Portland hub. The precise amount of time in milliseconds that it takes for an XpressBet wager to get to it's hub will be different from the amount of time it will take a PTC wager to reach Amtote Portland. Can say whether it's more or less because that depends on a number of factors. Then once it reaches the hub, how quickly will the hub route it into the appropriate track pool?

3) Not all of PTC's customers queued wagers get sent at exactly the same time. Some players specifiy merge time at 1 MTP, some at 0MTP, some others at less than 0 MTP. It's a tradeoff between execution and getting shut out.

I haven't found any of this a problem in practice, perhaps other PTC players could weigh in.

Ian

[njcurveball]

1) People won't necessarily be betting on the same horse (queue or late money) so it isn't one single animal that's going to get bet down.



At first flush this is a good point. But you and I could pretty much scan the tote at 3 minutes to post to put together a "top 3" list very easily.

Obivously bet down favorites and longshots 10-1 plus will not be on many lists. So we are talking 2 to 3 (and sometimes 4 horses) tops.

Bet down longshots also won't be in play as well.

I see this as something very profitable when a few have it and maybe even swinging the other way when most get it.

If nothing else, the landscape for value betting will definitely change in the future.

Most value bettors I know these days will not even look at the board seriously until 2 minutes to post. Then to have to contend with bets coming in after 1 minute?

I would be curious to see a percentage of times players get the odds they wanted when the betting stops and perhaps that could be carried over time as trends develop.

We really are not talking about a lot of horses and if 4 or 5 on-line sites are pumping in late money with whales, the odds are bound to drop on lots of winners.

PTC is at the forefront of this and I wish I had the chance to do it at this time. :ThmbUp:

[toetoe]

Idea:

Call every runner for win on a separate bet/queue.

[pandy]

So if I'm understanding this, the player can put in his min. odds which is the lowest amount he'll accept on that bet. If that's the setup, it's terrific, I often bet on underlays that I wouldn't have bet because I have to attempt to have a life.

By the way, I just withdrew money from an offshore account which will be deposited with PTC, I agree they deserve support from us, their business model is the best for the players.

[betovernetcapper]

In the bad old days, I used to have to go to the windows at 5 minutes to post to avoid being shut out and if I was dutching maybe making a 2nd visit to try and correct for odds changes. Now if ones of my picks meets a certain price at post time-bang the bet goes through.

Typical set up Zia race 7 at X time to post
if #8 is 2-1 or better than $11 to win
if #2 is 3-1 or better than $8 to win
if #1 is 4-1 or better than $6 to win

or
I could just specify a minimum payoff like 6-5 and dutch all three.

or
set up minimum exacta-quinella or double payoffs and just cherry pick

Can you imagine the book and video Dick Mitchell would have out on this if he were alive today? ;)

[Premier Turf Club]

So if I'm understanding this, the player can put in his min. odds which is the lowest amount he'll accept on that bet. If that's the setup, it's terrific, I often bet on underlays that I wouldn't have bet because I have to attempt to have a life.

Yes. That's exactly what it does. As a 30+ year horseplayer I was getting tired of betting underlays as well. BTW, Using the file upload you can actually queue up bets days in advance.

By the way, I just withdrew money from an offshore account which will be deposited with PTC, I agree they deserve support from us, their business model is the best for the players.

Pandy, thank you very much for your support. I haven't preached much lately so I'll take a few seconds here. Horseplayers, this is our last chance. Trust me, no other player centric group is ever going to invest the money we have in this business going forward. I know we need more content; the fact that we don't have a full menu isn't from a lack of effort.

It is a legitimate possibility that there will be but a single major ADW by this time next year. And without choice we're all losers.

[Premier Turf Club]

P.S. In our neverending quest for improvement, we have a terrific new betting interface going on-line next week. I'll put up some screen shots over the weekend but all of our beta testers have raved about it.

[BillW]

Bill,

Just saw this explanation and it is basically the way I thought the bets were made. My curiousity is what happens when 4 or 5 ADWs ALL have bets waiting? Are you doing this now? How is it working?



Jim,

I've been using this feature from its inception. It is no different than performing the same activity manually, except that you don't have to be at the wheel at post time. Of course if post time is delayed 2 minutes then you can't do anything about it as you would watching the tote manually. Also yes, as when you are betting manually and the odds drop below your threshold after you click confirm, it can happen with automatic conditionals. The game is the same whether you are doing it manually or automatically, know the characteristics of the pool you are wagering into. If the pool is subject to late change, adjust your threshold appropriately. This isn't a panacea, simply a tool allowing you to place bets that you might not otherwise be able to place due to conflicting schedule (work for instance).

BTW, I set my send time at 0:00 and have yet to have a bet placed that was not intended (final odds drop below threshold after bet is placed) or not placed that was intended (final odds drift above threshold after bet is rejected or race goes off before 0:00 of scheduled post time) although I fully expect that it will happen at sometime in the future.

Bill

[njcurveball]

Also yes, as when you are betting manually and the odds drop below your threshold after you click confirm, it can happen with automatic conditionals. The game is the same whether you are doing it manually or automatically, know the characteristics of the pool you are wagering into. If the pool is subject to late change, adjust your threshold appropriately.


GREAT explanation here Bill! You definitely have your finger on the pulse of this! :ThmbUp:

[pandy]

Another thing you could do is bet the horse regularly, then put another bet in with the min odds set, this way if you get your price, you bet more. I do that a lot with my harness bets, which tend to win at a high percentage. I bet the horse early then if the horse is an overlay at post time, I bet more.

[melman]

Pandy, with PTC you can work the exacta's and doubles the same way if you choose. Just pre set a min $$$ amount for your exacta and if met with 0 to post time the bet goes in. Like the 5 to win the race with 1 and 4 as the "unders"? then set your 5 with 1 payout for a min of $30 and your 5 with 4 for a min payout of $40 and if met your bet is in. If not you will see a rejected because of failure to meet min odds note. I'll be sending some more e-mails to Dover and Balmoral/Maywood asking them to sign up with PTC as it's THE ADW for the players. Harrington was on board with Ian for there meet so I see no reason for Dover not to join. Also played the entire Indy downs harness meet and the Haw harness meet with PTC. I think places like HOO harness and Meadows and Pompano are hopeless as they are with the Tracknet anti-horse player group. And make no mistake that is exactly what Tracknet is ----anti horse player.