is Twinspires down for everybody else?

[JustRalph]

Twinspires is down for me.........since about 4p

anybody else ?

[Zydeco]

yes here too...have a message on home page...due to tote outage TS is not available

[Onion Monster]

I can't get it to work either. Video is fine, but tote has stopped and can't bet. The way I've been going lately, this may be a blessing.

[PhantomOnTour]

Just started a thread about the NYRA tote being down because that's what TwinSpires told me, but their betting page is all wacky right now and I think it's them, not NYRA. I am on hold as I type this...stay tuned, update coming.

[DeanT]

My ADW is cooked as well.

Funny, it accepted three nice bets that lost badly, but the last one didnt go in and won. I was beginning to think it was a conspiracy :)

[WJ47]

Twinspires is down for me too! :bang:

[Horseplayersbet.com]

Horseplayersbet.com is down too. Looks like a tote issue.

[comet52]

xpressbet same. reminds me of derby day :bang:

[Horseplayersbet.com]

I think it is fixed now.

[PhantomOnTour]

Just spoke with TwinSpires and the problem was with AmTote...the same guys who went down on Derby day.

[Onion Monster]

It's back up. I'm still down.

[DeanT]

I'm up. A couple of probable losing bets are accepted!

[JustRalph]

back here at about 5p............ thanks guys!

[WJ47]

It's back up, but still not crediting wins from races 8 and 9 at Belmont.

[Space Monkey]

Got home from golf, made a losing bet. Tried to ex key box the 2 with the 3,10 in Del 8th. Couldn't get it in. Of course it won. Paid $32 for $2. :mad:
To add insult to inury, I can't log back in due to multiple failed attempts. When it first went down, I logged out and tried a different browser. I couldn't log back in. F them for the night. I'm done.

[WJ47]

Twinspires is still not crediting wins from the last few races at Belmont. I had the late Pick 4 and the Grand Slam. Granted, the payoffs are pathetic (less than $50 total), but I had the bets in way before the system went down and I have a printed copy of both accepted wagers. Does anyone know what is going on with them?

[picojim]

it looks like

Pick-3 Refund $0.00
Pick-4 Refund $0.00
Pick-6 Refund $0.00

did you get your money back at least?

[WJ47]

That's crazy! I put these wagers in well in advance of them going down in Race 7. My winnings were going to be small, but what if someone had a pick 6 winner and they just refunded the wager?

Did this happen to all the ADWs powered by Amtote today? Everyone that had these winners just got refunded instead?

Thanks for the info, I didn't think that it would just be a refund on the winning tickets. I figured the system was just slow in crediting the winnings.

[horseking]

It seems to be policy with most ADW's that if the tote doesn't merge with the pools at the track that the wagers all get refunded....

It is kind of crazy though...you'd think in this day and age that you could get the tote to confirm the wager with the track at the same time they are giving the confirmation back to the ADW...that way the player has a CONFIRMED wager not just with the tote, but with the track itself.

It's really the ADW's that suffer, because we all get angry with the ADW when it's actually all the fault of the tote....

[Horseplayersbet.com]

It seems to be policy with most ADW's that if the tote doesn't merge with the pools at the track that the wagers all get refunded....

It is kind of crazy though...you'd think in this day and age that you could get the tote to confirm the wager with the track at the same time they are giving the confirmation back to the ADW...that way the player has a CONFIRMED wager not just with the tote, but with the track itself.

It's really the ADW's that suffer, because we all get angry with the ADW when it's actually all the fault of the tote....
Since the track takeout is an average of 20%, when these things happen, the players usually wind up ahead collectively. If $100,000 was refunded, it means that on average only $80,000 that represents winnings. However, you never hear someone who bet on losers of refunded races complaining very much :)

[horseking]

Since the track takeout is an average of 20%, when these things happen, the players usually wind up ahead collectively. If $100,000 was refunded, it means that on average only $80,000 that represents winnings. However, you never hear someone who bet on losers of refunded races complaining very much :)

It's true...that being said, when you have a winning wager that you've worked hard to get, and it gets rejected after you've done everything you're expected to do as a customer, it's a little hard to swallow.

But you're absolutely right....as a general rule, the ADW loses out because everything is refunded, and there are more losers than winners!

[WJ47]

I just wanted to mention that Twinspires credited my account today for my winning wagers from the day of the outage. I never asked them or complained to them directly so it was a nice surprise. :jump:

[Jeff P]

It's tough to put the blame on ADWs in this particular case...

I've been told that AmTote (aka Scientific Games) recently moved a bunch of equipment to a new physical location - and that the most recent outage was a direct result of that move.

That's still not a valid excuse for an outage.

Lots of companies manage to move equipment to new physical locations without causing system wide outages.

The world has moved on and players today have come to expect a higher standard.

If I log into Ameritrade.com to do some trading, or navigate to Google.com to do a web search - and they lose a bank of servers somehwere - chances are really good that I will never even know about it.

Why? Because there are several layers of backup systems in place - and the customer is seamlessly switched to the backup system.

IMHO, the fact that racing's customers are repeatedly subjected to outages illustrates perfectly the crux of a far bigger problem:

Failure on the part of racing's decision makers to address customer needs and wants.

If you adjust handle dollars for inflation, current year handle in 2010 is roughly HALF of what it was just 7 years ago in 2003.

Players taking the HANA survey last fall named high takeout, lack of pool integrity, and lack of drug integrity as the three most glaring problems in racing driving them to WAGER LESS.

IMHO, tote outages like the one posted about in this thread are tied to player perceptions about the lack of pool integrity.

Racing is still trying to make do with a tote system that is too old and too slow to render odds and payoffs in real time - and one that apparently we can expect repeated outages from.

I can't blame ADWs for AmTote going down.

But I CAN suggest that they make one simple change to their websites:

When the connection is lost between the ADW's server and the tote stream, why not put a message up on the page displaying the wagering interface?... Something like the following:

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but the connection to the tote compay <insert name of tote company here> is down. Please try again later."That way, at least the customer will KNOW what's going on.




To racing decision makers everyhere:

I submit to you that change is needed and it is needed now... especially when it comes to takeout, odds that change after the bell, and cheating through the use of drugs.

Unless of course you actually LIKE the idea of handle 7 years from now being half of what it is today.



-jp

.

[PaceAdvantage]

nice post Jeff. And thanks for sharing the info about the AmTote move...

[Unome]

I've been told that AmTote (aka Scientific Games) recently moved a bunch of equipment to a new physical location - and that the most recent outage was a direct result of that move.


They moved to Portland Meadows from a spot that they had shared with a few ADW's for ever.