Paulick report letter on fairness
 

Fairness?

Ralph, this is the RACING section! :lol::lol::lol:

The Fair is something that comes every October.

Yep……what was I thinking?

Excellent post.

The only thing I'd really like more of a breakdown on is specifically, accounts wagering $100m or more.

My (highly reliable) sources tell me that there are 6 such organizations, and that between them they wager 15+% of that 19%.

Recently, I met with "some" highly successful players to discuss ideas for "fixing what's broken."

Perhaps you could add your opinions to this?

What they/we came up with was a structured tier of max bet sizes per account based upon minutes to post.

Example (Win Pool Bets):
5 minutes - unlimited wager size
4 minutes - $2,000
3 minutes - $1,000
2 minutes - $500
1 minute - $300
0 minutes - $250

Obviously, these maximums would need to be adjusted for each pool, based upon average pool size. (Which also takes into consideration the problem of BEL vs. WRD having different size pools.)

These numbers need tweaking, but consider what this does.

1) It causes tracks to run closer to designated post times (which could be determined when the tote for the race opens up).

2) It does not curtail the AMOUNT of money wagered by "whales." It only curtails WHEN they can bet it.

3) Tracking account ownership across multiple ADWs would be a challenge to overcome, but considering taxation requirements that information is clearly available.

4) Wagering stops when the 1st horse enters the gate.
Exceptions can be made if a horse scratches and everyone has to get re-loaded. (Think "Overtime" betting.)

It is kind of interesting, not really something most of us didn't know and talk about here. How does the math look, though? Lets use Paulick's example and assume CRWs are betting 20% of the pool. If they bet 100k in a race, that means the pool was 500k. Also, lets assume the takeout is blended at 20%, the actual takeout, not rebates. How much are they hurting regular Joes?

Pool is 500k, takeout 20%, so available amount to return is now 400k. Obviously, the rebates are coming from that takeout somewhere, but that doesn't really affect us directly. Of that 400k, Paulick says the teams return 94k for a loss of 6%, something they make up in rebates and get a profit.

This assumes the public bets the remaining 400k into the race. The money available to return to them after takeout and paying the CRWs is 400k - 94k, or 306k. That is going to be divvied up among the winners. What is the takeout now? I get 76.5% (306k/400k) of the general public's betting dollars are being returned to them, or 23.5% rake.

That is an increase of 3.5% takeout using Paulick's example caused by the CRW teams. Frankly, it is less than I suspected but still obviously not great. It can also be assumed the CRW teams are not churning the profit, they are a business and surely removing our money from circulation whereas we'd probably bet it back eventually.

I wonder if the example in the articles is overly conservative on how much CRWs are betting and what is the initial loss they are taking. He uses 20% and 6% but I'm not so sure. I can find out current numbers but I don't know how much I'll be able to share.

Feel free to let me know if my math is off somewhere, I did it on the fly.

CJ,

I don't think your assessment is off-base.

I just think that it doesn't address the REAL problems.
_________________

1. The drastic changing of the odds.
This is mostly because so much handle is concentrated in the hands of 6 bettors.


2. If you chart the gate odds against final odds almost 75% of the winners are bet down.
Only players with a really good handle on projecting the final odds can make an accurate assessment of hit rate x payoff.


3. When 19% of the handle is coming from winning players, the market becomes highly efficient.
In other words, winning players are bad for the really good players because it makes it even harder to win.


Problem #3 sounds a lot like "If players are long-term winners we need to stop them from playing for the betterment of the game.

Of course, we don't want to do that so, there is no answer for #3.

But #1 & #2 can certainly be addressed by changing the rules for WHEN big bettors can wager. And when I say, "BIG" I mean consistently big bettors.

CJ,

I think your analysis is correct. I've been saying for awhile the impact is less than some people have been suggesting. But I'll add to it.

Long before rebates and CAWs, there were still winning players and players that outperformed the take out there. We could apply the very same math to them if we had the data. It's just easier now to identify a group of players that's outperforming the take as opposed to the more anonymous individuals in the past that were very good, making the pools more efficient, and making it harder for everyone else.

IMO, the real problem is that there's way more smart money out there now as a percentage of the pie than there used to be. A lot of the fish money from OTBs is gone and has been replaced by very sharp handicappers and bettors that bet huge. That's one reason I was not as thrilled as everyone else about the demise of NYCOTB. A lot of the OTB money switched over to NYRA accounts, but some of it (the fishiest of the fish) was lost. So it's way harder for guys like us to find any legitimate overlays or pool inefficiencies competing against ever smarter money.

Is it be logical to assume that a horse in a down leg of a horizontal wager be bet proportionately the same in the horizontal bet as they would be in the win pool? So if horse #1 in the third leg of a P-3 has 20% of the total P-3 pool bet on it can one assume that it will have 20% of the win pool bet on it too?

If you bet 2:1 and miraculously the pool closes with that horse at 2:1 as every man, woman, senior, child, pet, etc. hits "wager" as the horses are loading.....you're going to get 2:1 regardless of somebody else's takeout.

the percentages may not be exact, but the general models will reveal a lot.

If a horse is 6/1 morning line yet is co-favored in the doubles and pick 3, then if he happens to be six to one loading into the gate I will be surprised if he's not co-favored or so by off
I would not list those types as some sort of problematic event.

If Len Bias OD'd today some Twitter account would be suggesting it was vax related rather than the crack pipe or pile of cocaine on his desk.

Just as a rider who stops pumping an empty sore horse did cheat the public, while extremely unlikely to be an intricate plot.

It's possible to mention some things you didn't like and wish would be done better without categorizing them and fitting them to a predetermined confirmation bias because of a need for an extreme polarized view.

The rebates to make it slightly harder to regular players.
It's already a very very hard game.
That is somewhat unfair.

There are some other things that I worry about with computer players but I am ending this post and nobody really knows what I would ask anyway about this.

it looks like we are having shepherd's pie tonight.

Horse racing is probably one of the most fair things that I'm exposed to in my life.

If, in fact, the betting action in the horizontals mirrors the betting action in the win pools then the tracks could help all players by showing a matrix board of how all the horizontal money was bet. Will pays can be helpful but they only represent live tickets which only show a small fraction of the total horizontal pool. Each horse in the matrix can be shown as either a percentage of the pool or a win odds equivalent. The only race that would be blind to the public would be the first race of the day. All other races would provide accurate clues to the public as to what the win odds will end up being just by checking the matrix board.

More than anything else mentioned in the Paulick article, what bothers me most is the reminder, “Since NYRA and Stronach are part owners of Elite Turf Club, the largest of the offshore rebaters catering to computer assisted bettors,...”

Just what is the relationship between Elite Turf Club & CAW groups wagering through it? The skeptic in me suspects it is not simply an arms-length relationship between a vendor and their customer; that there are aspects of that relationship making them, in essence, business partners…which would make NYRA and Stronach to be partners of the CAW groups betting through Elite–think about the various implications of that.

And since NYRA & Stronach are part Owners of Elite, it’s in their interest to give Elite whatever signal discount is needed to make Elite still profitable no matter the amount Elite has rebated the CAW groups…the result being, as C.J. described, part or most of said discount eventually coming out of the return to other bettors.

The fishy smell emanating from this is only heightened by this partnership of NYRA/Stronach/Elite being headquartered on a Caribbean island (Curacao), and gaining entry to the pari mutuel system through an outpost in North Dakota that is closed to the public. Could there be any two locations on the planet where they’re less likely to be nuisanced by regulatory oversight or consumer advocacy?

Bingo

i wonder how the Twinspires operation can survive without this lucrative offshore activity.